Germany's scrap metal recycling sector faced its toughest year in over a decade in 2025, hit by falling prices, weaker industrial output, and soaring energy costs. Scrap prices dropped fifteen to twenty percent while energy bills rose forty to sixty percent above pre-crisis levels, squeezing margins across the industry. Recycling associations are now calling for policy support, warning that without intervention the sector risks losing the collection infrastructure that Europe's steel decarbonisation plans critically depend on.