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Business Daily: Wealth from waste: can urban mining save the planet?

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25/04/2022 GMT

Wealth from waste: can urban mining save the planet?

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Wealth from waste: can urban mining save the planet?

Can extracting materials from used products make us less reliant on traditional mining?

We explore whether recycling materials from used products could help us to become less dependent on traditional mining.

Ivana Davidovic investigates urban mining -  the process of reclaiming raw materials from spent products, buildings and waste. She looks at what new technologies are helping us to recycle waste and the benefits that could bring. 

In Antwerp, Belgium, she visits Umicore, once a traditional smelting company, which now specialises in extracting precious metals from electronics - and then puts them into new products, like catalysts or car battery components. 

On the other side of the world - in Sydney, Australia - professor and inventor Veena Sahajwalla explains her innovative way to produce so-called "green steel." 

Jessika Richter, a researcher from Lundt University in Sweden, tells us why the booming electric vehicles industry will increasingly have to find raw materials for batteries outside of conventional mining. Heather Clancy, the editor of the US-based Green Biz magazine, says US carmakers are now investing in urban mining.

Pascal Leroy, the director-general of the WEEE Forum, discusses how re-using waste can help the rest of the world become less dependent on rare earth materials which come from Russia, China and Ukraine. 

PHOTO: Aerial view waste management facility with cityscape background/Getty Images

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