Recycling International reported on 27 October 2026 that Atlantic Copper has brought its CirCular recycling plant online at the Huelva metallurgical complex in Spain. The company, a Freeport-McMoRan subsidiary, held the inaugural event on 14 September. The plant is designed to process up to 60,000 tonnes a year of non-ferrous metal shreds from waste electrical and electronic equipment that authorised agents have already pre-processed. Atlantic Copper put the investment at more than €550 million.

The same company release lists copper, gold, silver, palladium, platinum and nickel among the metals the line is built to recover. Recycling International recorded Atlantic Copper as Spain’s leading refined-copper producer, processing more than 1.1 million tonnes of copper-ore concentrate and recycled materials a year and producing about 285,000 tonnes of refined copper cathodes. The publication also recorded €10 million of research and development spend in 2025.

The European Commission already recognised CirCular as a Critical Raw Materials Act Strategic Project in Decision (EU) 2025/840 of 25 March 2025. The annex describes an ongoing recycling project in Spain, promoted by Atlantic Copper SLU, aimed at copper, nickel and platinum-group metals. The company treated the Huelva line as the first plant of this type in southern Europe. That recognition is separate from the 9 October 2026 list that named four Dutch scrap recyclers. See those Dutch projects.

What CirCular actually takes

Atlantic Copper’s project page is specific about the feed: non-ferrous metal shreds from obsolete electrical and electronic equipment, already pre-processed by authorised agents. Whole appliances, mixed household collections and unsorted WEEE sit outside that description. A clean copper-wire specification already used here — Berry, Birch or Barley — remains a different contract. See copper scrap.

EUWID’s 28 October German WEEE survey sits next to that offtake. High copper prices and relatively stable ferrous scrap have let German e-waste recyclers hold intake prices unchanged since July, even as diesel, freight and labour costs rose. Arisings were described as stable to good, with white goods often good or very good and a summer surge in cooling appliances from retail take-back. Plastic-fraction sales and battery-related fires remain the operational problems. Those German treatment prices are not a Huelva purchase programme, and they are not a live grade list.

The Hamburg plant Aurubis approved on 7 October for copper- and precious-metal intermediates is a different book. That line is scheduled for late 2028 and is built to sample complex residues inside Aurubis’s own smelter network. See the Hamburg briefing. A circuit-board or WEEE shred lot should not be offered as Berry, and it should not be offered as a Hamburg intermediate.

Zorba, the shredded non-ferrous mix already named on this site, comes from a fragmentiser, usually an auto shredder. CirCular asks for pre-processed WEEE non-ferrous shreds. Keep those two streams on separate tickets. See ISRI scrap codes.

Who it affects among yards, traders, mills and processors

Spanish, Portuguese and southern French WEEE processors that already produce a non-ferrous shred after authorised treatment now have a works ticket inside the existing Huelva copper complex. Delivery is a truck or short-sea move to Huelva, not a deep-sea stem. Write the preparation, an assay or estimated copper and precious-metal content if you have one, grain size or packing, and whether the lot is dry. Do not send a mixed appliance load.

German and northern European WEEE plants sitting on the EUWID book — stable intake prices, decent white-goods and cooling-appliance volumes, and a copper credit that is still covering extra diesel and freight — can treat Huelva as one more intra-EU recovery route for a prepared non-ferrous fraction. The plant does not lift whole collections or plastic-heavy residues. Battery-bearing material stays a fire and acceptance problem at the first treatment plant; it is not a CirCular feedstock description.

Traders who have been packing electronic fractions toward non-OECD recovery plants should keep the 21 November waste-list decision on a separate file. Huelva is an EU works. A waste-classified WEEE shred that stays inside the Union is not decided by that non-OECD metal column. An end-of-waste claim still needs the specification and the documents. See OECD and non-OECD shipment rules.

Copper refiners and rod mills buying Berry or Birch are not the buyer for this stream. The 26 October German copper-scrap pullback already recorded a weaker LME week; recheck the copper bid before you load a wire lot, and keep that ticket away from the e-scrap shred. CirCular is a processing decision at one Spanish site. It does not restore a postponed copper-wire stem. See that copper-scrap note.

How to name the lot

If the material is clean copper wire or solids, name the grade already used here: Barley, Berry, Birch, Candy or Cliff. If it is a pre-processed WEEE non-ferrous shred for a smelter, write that in plain English: the stream, authorised-treatment status, an assay if measured, grain size or packing, city or works, and whether the sale is ex-works or delivered Huelva. Do not call a mixed e-waste collection Berry. Do not write CirCular, a recycled-content percentage or a 60,000-tonne plant figure on the offer.

State tonnes and the intended recovery plant. A Huelva works ticket, a Hamburg intermediate and a Zorba export are different contracts.

Verified companies can list on live lots or post a wanted enquiry. Request access if you have a prepared WEEE fraction or a smelter programme to cover.