Gold recycling grows threefold over mining in 2025

2025 is the second consecutive year in which gold recycling has broken the 1,000-ton barrier within the first nine months. While gold mining is up 2 per cent compared to the same period last year, gold recycling increased by 6 per cent. As a result, gold production is becoming more climate and environmentally friendly overall. This is not only relevant from a sustainability perspective. The all-in sustaining costs (AISC) per ounce of gold, which accrue when gold is extracted from existing mines, are rising slowly but steadily. In 2025, they average 1,578 US$ per ounce. At the end of January 2020, the official gold price was 1,517 – at today’s AISC, gold mining would thus not have been profitable.

Two factors support trend towards gold recycling  

The gold price is at a record high in 2025 and has motivated many to sell their scrap gold, a trend we already saw last year. In addition, new purchases of gold jewellery are down this year for the same reason. A further factor is mining production, which ran at full speed in recent years but has only increased slightly in 2025, as a number of gold-producing countries report surprising declines in production, among them Mexico, Mali, Indonesia and Turkey, with the latter two recording sharp declines of 37 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Gold recycling: Europe is catching up

The 1,041 tons of gold recycled globally thus far in 2025, from scrap gold and electronic waste, was not primarily sourced in India and China, where the population traditionally owns the most scrap gold. This year, Europe is proving a driving force, with Germany, Italy, France and the UK playing a leading role in gold recycling with double-digit growth rates.