Urban mining for a circular economy

How will urban mining benefit a circular economy? David Peck interviews dr Ester van der Voet. The video starts with Ester answering Dave’s question: “Why aren’t we currently mining our urban mines?”

MAIN TAKEAWAYS
- Urban mining makes clever use of the materials that are already there. This reduces the need to extract new materials and reduces the amount of waste. Urban mining can be a valuable part of the Circular Economy.

- Exploring the urban mine requires careful planning. We should for instance:

- - Develop new recycling technologies that enable us to retrieve metals from complex waste streams.

- - Design products in such a way that they can be taken apart easily, so we have cleaner waste streams.

- - Design materials in such a way that they can be recycled more easily.