Copper is $10,600 per tonne You can buy an entry level copper recycling machine for $5,000 This machine consumes 39kW and is able to process 200kg / hour The running costs are probably around $50/hour and the output is worth $2,700 / hour So it really comes down to finding a cheap sources of copper. When the equipment is this cheap relative to the materials, it doesn’t make sense to consolidate and ship bulk material large distances. That sort of large scale heavy industry only makes sense for high capex low bulk price process, of which copper recycling is no longer one. With low capex high bulk prices (such as copper) it makes much more economic sense to decentralise industry into local nodes. More young people should understand industrial economics, they’re simple and can be extremely lucrative because everyone is asleep on it.