I've tryed to work out How much of the resources a city will request and How much waste it produce at given populations Anually.
Then if that amount of waste is recycled how much of the needed production can it be used to Produce.

(Il add more pop values as im able to collect them)

Expect lots of numbers calculated by hand so be sure to let me know if something doesn't add up.

(Numbers from Early Access release version)

Each time a city Demand is changed the requested resources and waste will be Lowered to a more manageable rate before ramping back up again to the next Milestone.

Metal Waste is first available at 1k
Food and Organic Waste at 10k
Composite and Plastic at 100k

Table shows 1 City pops not total world pops.
Requested and Waste are for each item type not total of all items

So you Started recycling what are you going to to do with it all that Aluminum is going to back up fast if we don't put it to good use.

So its best useage is to make Hightech Parts. (HTP)
3x HTP = 2x ALU, 1x Polymer

Recycled metal give 1 Aluminum (ALU) and 2 Steel (ST) per 3 Metal Waste (MW).

So i used this formular

MW/3 /2 x3 - City Demand /3 x2



Recycling Will not fully Supplement Aluminium mining but will vastly lower the overall demand on the raw resource.

Thats a lot of Steel you have there, Would be ashame to not put it all to use.

Early on Steel's (ST) main Use is in Reinforced Concrete (RC)
1x RC = 1x ST, 1x Concrete

And later in Composite (CP) as Tempered Steel (TS)
3x TS = 4x ST, 1x Nitrogen
1x CP = 1x TS, 1x Polymer

Recycled metal give 1 Aluminum (ALU) and 2 Steel (ST) per 3 Metal Waste (MW).

Formular

MW/3x2 x1 - City Demand x1


Once up and running recycled Steel will cover Reinforced Concrete Output with just a little outside supply of Iron as the System ramps up.

Formular

MW/3x2 /4 x3 x1 -City Demand x1 x1


Composite will use all the recycled steel and still require some outside input.

Organic Waste requires an Input of nitrogen to make compost a key ingredient in the production of food for your cities.

5x Organic Waste(OW) + Nitrogen = 1x Compost(Com)
1x Compost + 4x Water = 2x Food(FD)

formular

OW/5 x2 - City Demand /2


A seperate set up for compost using the Alternate receipe will be required to meet the growing food demand.

1x Compost = 3x Carbon +1x Nitrogen in a Factory

Polymers are made with Carbon and take alot of space so using as much Recycled plastic as you can is a great idea. They have duel usage for Hightech Parts and Composite.

Polymers(POL) main Use is in Composite(CP) and Hightech Parts(HTP)

1x POL = 2x Plastic Waste
1x CP = 1x Tempered Steel, 1x POL

formular

PW/2 x1 - City Demand x1 x1



1x POL = 2x Plastic Waste
3x HTP = 2x ALU, 1x POL

formular

PW/2 x1 x3 - City Demand x1 /3



Polymers multi use makes them very versitile and in high demand by clearly over produce when making HTP which can lead to storage issues if not managed well.

It seems that while you can keep a city stable with just the recycled goods, there will always be an outside drain on resources in order to grow your cities.

Recycling recovers approximatly 66% of material needed to run the city
Recycled Waste is 150% of the requested resource rate.

However for those that did in fact read through the numbers you can see that the recycled Steel and Polymers form an almost perfect Balance when used in creation of Composites and as such should be where possible kept in a near closed loop inputting Nitrogen and exporting Aluminum to the HTP production area.


I hope this Guide helped in some way. (And that they don't change these rates anytime soon)