Recovering critical minerals from discarded phones could generate $2.2 billion in value, according to a new report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Getting there, the report finds, requires changes across four fronts: phone design, repair availability, recycling infrastructure and the location of secondary processing facilities.

The report frames the $2.2 billion figure as an opportunity tied specifically to the critical minerals embedded in the phone stream — materials that carry both commercial value and supply-chain significance for battery and electronics manufacturing. But the foundation cautions that the opportunity is uneven. Not every region or material stream can capture the same share of that value, and the distribution of recovery potential depends heavily on where processing capacity actually sits.

Design is the first bottleneck the report identifies. Phones built without disassembly in mind reduce the yield that recyclers can extract at end of life. The foundation calls for design changes that make critical minerals easier to recover, alongside stronger repair options that keep devices in service longer before they enter the recycling stream.

Repair and recycling infrastructure form the second and third legs of the report's argument. More repair pathways extend device lifetimes and shift the timing of material recovery, while expanded collection and recycling capacity determines how much of the embedded mineral value is actually captured rather than lost to landfill or export.

The fourth factor — secondary processing locations — carries the sharpest geographic edge in the report's analysis. Where phones are processed determines who captures the mineral value. Regions without secondary processing capacity risk shipping material out and forfeiting the recovery opportunity, a dynamic the foundation says makes the overall $2.2 billion opportunity unevenly distributed rather than universally available.

The report positions all four levers as connected: design decisions made by manufacturers ripple through repair feasibility, collection economics and the quality of material that reaches processors. Weakness at any stage caps the value recoverable downstream.

For the recycling industry, the findings translate into a planning question. Investment in collection and processing capacity only pays off at full value if upstream design and repair systems deliver devices that can be processed efficiently, and if secondary processing capacity exists close enough to the material stream to retain the recovered minerals.

The foundation presents its recommendations as a framework for policymakers and industry rather than a single regulatory ask. Each of the four areas — design, repair, infrastructure and processing location — implies its own set of decisions for manufacturers, recyclers and governments.

What happens next depends on whether manufacturers adopt the design changes and whether governments and industry commit to building the repair networks, collection systems and secondary processing capacity the report says the $2.2 billion opportunity requires.