Overview
Recycled content is the part of a product that comes from recycled material rather than newly extracted, or virgin, material. It is normally expressed as a percentage by weight, so a battery casing with 30 percent recycled content draws roughly a third of its mass from recovered material.
EU law has shifted from treating this as a voluntary selling point to setting hard minimums. The Battery Regulation requires defined shares of recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead in certain batteries, with the thresholds climbing on a schedule. The Ecodesign Regulation can set recycled-content rules product group by product group, and separate packaging rules push in the same direction.
Why it is rising up the agenda
Minimum recycled content is one of the more concrete levers behind the EU's circular economy goals. A target only works if recovered material can be measured and traced back into new products, which is why the rules increasingly come with verification and documentation duties rather than just a headline percentage.
Note: general educational information, not legal advice. Check the official source before relying on it.