Trace-in-Metal Ltd, a new, unique and resilient method of providing traceability of metals throughout the recycling process, primarily aimed at reducing the incidence of metal theft and lowering its impact on the UK economy. Project type Development

The Association of Chief Police Officers announced in 2011 that metal theft cost the UK £770
million. The British Transport Police (BTP) reported 2000 incidents of metal theft over the
same period with Network Rail estimating the cost to £16 million every year (BTP bulletin).
Metal theft is a recognised threat to national infrastructure and has a negative impact on the
UK economy. In addition, irreplaceable cultural heritage was being destroyed following water
ingress as a result of lead being stolen from roofs. Ecclesiastical Insurance, the main insurer
for the Anglican Church’s over 16000 buildings, had 2500 claims in 2011. Several marking
methods were already being used, but were simply not working as theft of lead from church
roofs and other metals was increasing. A meeting was held in October 2011 by the company
founders to come up with ideas for a technology that would enable the permanent marking of
metals that would be traceable back to source even after melting. The starting point was
concern about lead being stolen from historic buildings and the initial technology was
specifically developed to combat such theft. Lead, the pliable, soft metal used for roofs, was
chosen as the metal to prove the concept with, but with a clear objective to find marking
methods for other metals such as copper and aluminium.
The markers aim to contain information that would help scrap metal dealers (SMDs) to
differentiate stolen from legitimately acquired metal, carry information that could be used to
track metal from point of marking, assist law enforcing agencies in prosecuting those either
stealing or buying stolen metals and also act as a deterrent to theft. To prevent removal by
thieves (covert marking) the markers, or identifiers, should be fused in the metal and be as
invisible as possible. We aim to achieve this via a novel air rifle based ballistics fusion
process that overtly tags the surface of a metal for enhanced retrieval, and detection back to
source.