From waste to value: Recovering critical raw materials from urban mines in the European Union and the United States

Submitted data was used to write an article: Jędrusiak, R., Bielowicz, B., Drobniak, A., 2023, From waste to value: Recovering critical raw materials from urban mines in the European Union and the United States, Mineral Resource Management 39 (3), 43-63. https://doi.org/10.24425/gsm.2023.147557

Funding acknowledgments: Agnieszka Drobniak contribution comes from the support of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange within the Polish Returns Programme (BPN/PPO/2021/1/00005/DEC/1), and the National Science Center, Poland (2022/01/1/ST10/00024). This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland (subsidies no. 16.16.140.315).

Article Abstract: Modern human consumption, rapid urbanization and further increases in the world’s population lead to the demand for more goods and materials. However, after utilization, only some of these materials are recovered or recycled, many are discarded due to a lack of implemented recovery technologies and regulations, or due to the content of contaminants. Moreover, many of the potentially recoverable materials are deposited in landfills or shipped to less developed countries for disposal where they can cause environmental contamination. The new approach to waste management follows the hierarchy of waste prevention. First, waste is prepared for reuse and repair without the need for treatment processes, or it is recycled. If this is not possible, the waste is incinerated with energy recovery, or failing that, it is disposed of in landfills. This waste hierarchy has become one of the key factors in the transformation of a linear economy into a circular economy. Particularly noteworthy is waste containing raw materials of significant economic importance, especially those of a high supply risk due to the level of concentration in another country and import dependence. These critical raw materials (CRM) are an inherent part of our modern, technology-driven life. They are essential to national security and the economic development of every country. Their use is drastically increasing, and with it, the need to assure their reliable and unrestricted access along with lowering the environmental impact from their production and extraction. Currently, scientists and industry direct a lot of effort into finding new supplies of these materials, not only from traditional sources in nature but also from new sources like anthropogenic waste. The purpose of this study is to present the raw material potential which remains mostly unused in residues from municipal waste incineration in regions with highly developed economies – the United States and the European Union. These economies have shortages of their own raw material extraction capacity due to high levels of consumption and insufficient amounts of raw-material content in natural resources.