Rising energy and raw material prices and the legal framework conditions for avoiding waste and emissions cause increasing interest in establishing more efficient concepts for recycling residual materials in the iron and steel producing industry. The RecoDust process represents a novel technology for the pyrometallurgical treatment of steel mill dust. The recycling network for zinc-containing residues is currently dominated by the Waelz process and the DK process. Therefore, the aim of this work is to compare the established recycling routes, Waelz process and DK process, with the RecoDust process according to the criteria KEA and CO2 emissions. For this purpose, a material flow analysis is carried out and all relevant goods and material flows will be identified. Based on this, an energy balance will be created to determine the KEA and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the investment costs of a RecoDust plant with a capacity of one ton of input dust per hour are to be estimated. The evaluation shows that the RecoDust process is positioned between the recycling route via the DK process and the Waelz process in terms of KEA. In terms of CO2 emissions, the RecoDust process is in the lead as the least polluter. The investment costs of the RecoDust plant are estimated at around 2.6 million euro using the Chilton method. The estimation accuracy is +25 % and -20 %.