A Review of Urban Mining in the Past, Present and Future

As the world’s population is growing exponentially, more and more resources are needed to meet the demand. The earth does not have an infinite amount of resources and natural reserves are on a trend towards depletion. In fact, about half of the world’s copper and other metal stocks have been mined. A solution that would help to slow the mining of virgin materials is urban mining. This is the concept of extracting valuable materials from existing infrastructure, landfills, and the dissipation of them into the environment. This would allow an increased demand for metals to be met without having to mine additional virgin materials. There are many different types and processes that can be used to collect materials, especially metals. These types include secondary mining, landfill mining, hibernation mining, dissipation mining, and in-use mining. Although there are challenges associated with urban mining, there are many benefits to continue to expand. Future research will help to improve these processes.