To provide a method for melting recovered printing plates in which oxidation loss can be reduced even if recovered printing plates are directly melted with new metals, thus a high melting yield equal to that in the case melting is performed with regenerated metals can be obtained.

In the melting method, recovered printing plates 35 obtained by recovering used lithographic printing plates 36 and/or edge materials 33 such as cut pieces of the lithographic printing plate and new metals 37 are melted by a burner 19 in a melting furnace 13. The method includes: a first charging step of, at first, charging the recovered printing plates 35 to the melting furnace 13 to form the deposits of the recovered printing plates 35 on the hearth 13B of the melting furnace 13; and a second charging step of charging the new metals 37 on the deposits of the recovered printing plates 35 to cover the deposits in such a manner that the deposits are not almost exposed, and the flame of the burner is applied to the new metals so as to be melted.