Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Rethink the future

Mining... out in the open?

• by Joss Blériot
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• 13 May 2011
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Materials and energy are at the heart of the Foundation’s preoccupations and message – in a world of finite resources where the overall long term trend is rising prices, and on which traditional industrial practices put a pressure it won’t withstand forever, finding a new model seems more than just a nice intellectual endeavour.

(homepage hero image by TJ Blackwell)

Part of that model involves a redesign of the materials themselves, since there is a pressing need for more non-toxic substances (biosphere) and for elements which can hold their level of quality regardless of the number of times they are reprocessed (technosphere). This forward-thinking aspect of the transition we deem necessary and feasible is a fascinating one, and to a certain extent its futuristic factor is extremely motivating for young people with creative minds.

Yet as we’ve often pointed out, relying on future developments and technology alone would be both over-optimistic and somewhat lazy, since it would mean avoiding to try and make better use of what we have. And if you consider that today’s situation is the culmination – some would say the cul-de-sac – of the industrial age, what we have on our hands is a world where a considerable amount of the extraction work has already been done: funny how we always look forward to future materials or worry about the implications of mining more stuff, but we never consider the wealth of resources already in circulation, isn’t it?

Beyond dumpster diving

To keep this simple, imagine a young boy in his playroom, his mind set on building a spanking new house with Lego bricks, because his previous creation – still standing – does not satisfy the needs of the new generation of Lego people that just arrived in the region. To his left stands the previous dwelling, disused but made of carefully selected bricks, to his right a boxfull of muddled-up individual components (let’s consider that this selection process represents, by analogy, the raw materials transformation which happens in the ‘real world’). Where would you, in this little boy’s place, source your materials from? Chances are that in all his youthful enthusiasm and common sense, he will know that capitalising on the work he’s already done will save him time and effort. He will then have perfectly illustrated the concept of urban mining…

In a ‘slightly’ more elaborate way, urbanmining.org co-founder Jesse Stallone would describe this idea as “the process of reclaiming compounds and elements from products, building and waste (…) [It goes] beyond ‘Dumpster Diving’, [and] requires a systems approach that utilises industrial ecology when viewing our end-of-pipe activities for material recovery.” The expression is often used to describe the recovery process of precious metals from old electronic devices, and with roughly 30 times more gold in mobile phone circuitry than in ore as processed in mines on a tonne to tonne basis, the potential seems striking (1). But urban mining is not limited to delicate retrieval operations to salvage metals that are sought-after by jewellers, it also applies to large-scale materials pools we too often neglect.

An alternative to extracting virgin materials... and more.

As Professor Thomas E. Graedel (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science) explains,

The energy used for primary production is embodied, to a large extent, in the metal and, consequently, in the building too. Today’s buildings and their contents therefore present large “urban mines” of around 400 million tonnes of aluminium metal (3) that can be extracted and recycled by future generations through the use of only 5% of the originally used energy, not just once but repeatedly.

Now, on top of the primary benefit expressed in Prof. Graedel’s recent paper Mining “urban ore” may provide an alternative to the continued extraction of virgin metals (2), the fact that a potential 95% saving in terms of energy can be achieved opens up the discussion on to new horizons from a systems perspective. Replacing that factor in the wider debate about changing our linear model actually addresses some of the criticism usually heard when it comes to moving towards renewable energy. “Oh but how many wind turbines and solar panels need to be installed to meet our energy needs?”, we so often hear… But what exactly are those needs, and isn’t there room for massive improvement when we look at ideas like urban mining?

We’ve come to a crossroads in our industrial history, and the troubled times the world economy has been experiencing recently are but the symptoms of a model in need of an evolution. One of the legacies of 300-or-so years of steam, coal and finally oil is the fact that a significant proportion of the extraction work has been done already, so how about adapting our practices to that reality? There is a wealth of materials already in circulation, creating the pathway for a clever use of that resource seems like a sensible thing to do, and could potentially address several aspects of the general issue. Now what if we started redesigning cities like future mines from the outset? After all, urban mining amounts to sustainable materials management – to use the bureaucratic generic expression – if it’s factored in the design process of the infrastructure.

Notes and references

1. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the concentrations of gold ore mined in the US and 30-40 times the concentration of copper ore mined in the US.” Source

2. Mining “urban ore” may provide an alternative to the continued extraction of virgin metals – Spring 2011 Issue of “The Bridge on Urban Sustainability”, National Academy of Engineering (USA).

3. “Today, approximately 75% of all the aluminium ever produced is still in productive use, having been through countless loops of its lifecycle.”
, says Ken Martchek, International Aluminium Institute Energy and Environment Committee Chairman.

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