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Environment
Michael Odei Erdiaw-Kwasie, Lecturer in Sustainability| Business and Accounting Discipline, Charles Darwin University

More consumption, more demand for resources, more waste: why urban mining’s time has come

Lynda Disher/Shutterstock

Pollution and waste, climate change and biodiversity loss are creating a triple planetary crisis. In response, UN Environment Programme executive director Inger Andersen has called for waste to be redefined as a valuable resource instead of a problem. That’s what urban mining does.

We commonly think of mining as drilling or digging into the earth to extract precious resources. Urban mining recovers these materials from waste. It can come from buildings, infrastructure and obsolete products.

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