Mitigating mineral extraction is considered to be an important challenge in prolonging resource supplies and protecting the environment at mining sites. This challenge can be faced by retaining metal resources within the anthroposphere with adequate technologies and policies for reducing losses to the environment. In mining and mineral processing, considerable amounts of metals are lost as tailings. In recycling, metal recovery from end-of-life products is limited by economic and technological restrictions. In this study, we evaluate the potential for mitigating mineral extraction by reducing the loss rates in mining and recycling. In this study, global substance flow analysis is conducted for seven metals and the importance of recycling is determined for each metal. Furthermore, the change in potential recycling in the future is discussed in combination with dynamic substance flow analysis. We found that reducing the loss rate in recycling could not fully realize mineral conservation in the year 2000, except in the case of lead. However, we also showed that it will become important as the metal discard increases in the future. The framework of this study supports the sustainable use of metals by introducing the right technologies and policies at the right time. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.