DLA Disposition Services: Recovering Critical Minerals from Military Equipment Could Strengthen America's Defense Supply Chain

Highlights

• Retired military aircraft and electronics contain recoverable critical minerals including rare earths, titanium, cobalt, tungsten, and gallium.
• DLA Disposition Services manages surplus and obsolete military property, creating opportunities to recover strategic materials rather than lose them through conventional scrap disposal.
• Domestic recovery of defense-sourced critical minerals could reduce import exposure, support U.S. processors, and bolster strategic stockpile resilience.
• Specialized infrastructure for dismantling, separating, and refining critical elements is required before defense recycling can become a viable supply chain solution.
• REEx sees DLA as a potential gateway connecting defense material recovery with America's emerging critical minerals industry.