Access to natural resources is increasingly more difficult and more costly

partly due to their economic significance and to continuous increase of their global consumption in the recent years. In the case of phosphorus (P)

which is a critical raw material

geological distribution of its primary nonrenewable source (phosphate rock) is concentrated in particular regions leading to high supply risk of this raw material. In Europe (EU-28)

where phosphate rock reserves are scarce

import of phosphorus has been the main source of supply. It means that Europe relies highly on the foreign exporters. From decision makers' perspective

recycling of phosphorus was taken into account as one of the possible solutions to decrease the dependence on imports and extraction of reserves. The question

however

is to what extent does the recycling of phosphorus help in reducing the reliance on typical supply resources? Hence

the main objective of this paper is to quantify the dynamic flow of phosphorus and show potential benefits of its recycling in Europe. This article presents a system dynamics model for representation of the element P flow and helps to quantify to what extent the recycled phosphorus could mitigate its criticality. Analysis of the results supports previous studies indicating the high reliance of EU on P imports

estimating around 96% as the reliance percentage on imports. The results imply that improving P recycling has the potential to decrease the level of P imports to a certain extent

which may reach 79%.