WOW! …the Critical Minerals & Rare Elements industry is already beginning to replace earth mines with “Urban Mining”.
See how fast “Industry” works to solve their own problems!?!
It has only been a few years!
Look here what recyclers have to work with!
This Year
The point herein is that every country, worldwide, needs their own Urban Mining = e-waste recycling. Below are examples of who is doing it and where your country can get help setting up your own operations.
In an earlier post, that says more about the reasons for this new WasteRush, here.
In this post:
Circular Mining
The Demand
The Suppliers – Technology
Rare earth elements await in Coal Mining Waste
The Suppliers – Collection+
Recycling “USED Renewables”
“WORLD RESOURCE USE” WILL DOUBLE BY 2060
…Remember, a list at the bottom of posts about WASTE to Energy
The most important issue is that:
Every country has e-waste and can capture the Critical Minerals & Rare Elements locally. Every country will have their own “urban mining” in the coming industrial era.
Urban Mining: An Unimaginably Valuable Mine ON Earth
November 2020, India …Electronic waste has 50 times higher concentration of precious metals than ores which are mined from planet Earth. Most of the used electronic products, which would otherwise decompose in landfills or be burned, are now used to extract precious metals. …
and …According to calculations by scientists, 50 million tonnes of e-waste remains to be recaptured worldwide. This also explains the recent boom in the number of e-waste recycling companies and start-ups.
7 reasons why urban mining is overtaking classical mining. Belgium
- 1. The age of cheap, abundant raw materials in the ground is over.
- 2. Raw material recapture from e-waste is increasingly cost-efficient.
- 3. In cities all over the world there are still millions of appliances waiting to be recovered.
- 4. For some rare metals, urban mining is gradually becoming the only source.
- 5. Urban mining avoids dangerous effects on humans and environment.
- 6. Classic mining cannot meet the rising demand for Critical Minerals & Rare Elements.
- 7. The business community, investors are jumping on board Urban Mining operations.
CIRCULAR/URBAN MINING
This can be big and Small business! Long Term!
We need to keep ALL sources of Critical Minerals & Rare Elements in the loop constantly! Big Demand!!!!
This video has auto-translations in many many languages! Look in Settings > Subtitles/CC > Auto-translate and click on CC.
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
The USE OF RECOVERED MATERIALS
The Demand
There is a Huge demand for e-waste recycling businesses! Huge!
Many of the elements in smartphones are used in clean energy products.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions
Alongside a wealth of detail on mineral demand prospects under different technology and policy assumptions, it examines whether today’s mineral investments can meet the needs of a swiftly changing energy sector. It considers the task ahead to promote responsible and sustainable development of mineral resources, and offers vital insights for policy makers, including six key IEA recommendations for a new, comprehensive approach to mineral security.
Experts call for mandatory recycling of products containing rare metals
We have answered your questions…
CEWASTE came to its end in April 2021. It was a 2.5 year project funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. It developed a voluntary certification scheme for waste treatment. Specifically, the project created, validated and launched the scheme for collection, transport and treatment facilities of key types of waste containing significant amounts of valuable and critical raw materials such as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries.
To learn more please consult CEWASTE Final Report available here.
This one product takes in the whole world:
Smart phones alone are overflowing.
There is 100 times more gold in a tonne of mobile phone
than in a tonne of gold ore.
https://weee-forum.org/
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
HOW to recover the material
The Supply
Who is recovering the
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements?
Even Fairphone has decided to relaunch recycling
Fairphone designs and produces lower environmental footprint smartphones with the goal of having better social impact than is common in the industry. In particular, the company aims to minimize the use of conflict minerals in its devices, maintain fair labor conditions for its workforce and suppliers, and allow users to maintain their own devices – right to repair.
Re-introducing: Fairphone’s Reuse & Recycle Program
We have talked about electronic waste being one of the fastest-growing waste streams on the planet – Globally only 17% of electronic waste (or e-waste) is documented to be collected for recycling, leaving roughly 83% of e-waste undocumented and ending up in shoe boxes or landfills – materials worth around USD 56 billion get lost every year. We always strive to reuse old products first and when that’s not possible, we recycle.
Who is doing the Work to capture the Critical Minerals & Rare Elements >>Urban Mining = Recycling
So many on board!
Lots of room for more Critical Minerals & Rare Elements Businesses!
Technology for capturing them
ONTARIO, CANADA; NEW YORK, ARIZONA, ALABAMA, OHIO, USA & NORWAY
https://li-cycle.com/
Li-Cycle is a perfect example of what can happen in any country around the world !
Technology that can handle “2000% of Lithium battery waste growth by 2030”
This video has auto-translations in many many languages! Look in Settings > Auto-translate.
Delivering value through recovered materials and process innovation.
Li-Cycle calls their locations around the world – Spokes. There are already 7 of them in the works….
2016 Founded
Creating a more efficient and sustainable recovery process for critical battery materials from spent lithium-ion batteries, Li-Cycle is founded by Ajay Kochhar and Tim Johnston.
2017 Mini Pilot
Li-Cycle starts building it’s first mini-pilot in Canada.
2018 The Demonstration Spoke & Hub
Li-Cycle successfully launches ’s our Demonstration Spoke & Hub in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
2019 The Spoke 1
and Spoke 1 is ready to process 2,500 tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste per year.
2020 Commercial Spoke 1 expanded
Spoke 1 is upgraded to process 5,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste per year.
2020 Commercial Spoke 2
Spoke 2 is now fully operational to process 5,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste at the Eastman Business Park (formerly Kodak) in New York State.
2022 Commercial Spoke 3
In early 2022, Li-Cycle will open Commercial Spoke 3 in Arizona to recycle 10,000 tonnes of lithium-ion batteries per year.
East Tamaki, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
https://www.mint.bio/
From trash to treasure
Biorefining precious metals from e-waste for a better tomorrow
Mint.Bio’s local metal recovery processing reduces reliance on mining while providing low-carbon metals to enhance the circular economy.
We provide low cost, environmentally sustainable biorefineries for recovering valuable metals from a range of waste materials.
Mint Innovation builds environmentally sustainable biorefineries for recovering valuable metals from a range of ‘urban’ waste materials such as e-waste, spent lithium batteries and catalysts. Using a proprietary clean technology, Mint recovers metals where the waste is produced, and returns them to the local economy. Old phones can become jewellery, ash municipal incinerators can be turned into bronze propellers.
December 2021 – Mint secures Sydney location for first commercial plant
January 2022 – Australian Government supports Mint Innovation with $4.2 million and other companies to reduce emissions and grow recycling
New technology for
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
Zwingenberg, Germany
https://www.brain-biotech.com/
BRAIN AG, a German bioeconomy pioneer, has developed a biological solution for the extraction of valuable metals from secondary raw materials that is not only powerful but also mild and environmentally friendly. with microorganisms
The BRAIN BioXtractor:
- is a mobile, fully equipped, self-contained facility on a pilot plant scale;
- contains pioneering technology for bio-based and sustainable metal extraction;
- constitutes a powerful yet safe biological process solution for metal recovery from by-products, waste streams and primary resources;
- is suitable for on-site process demonstrations and can be adapted to specific plant requirements.
“BRAIN’s engagement in biometallurgy was a coincidence: in 2008, when we were working on surface-active biomolecules, we observed that a bacterial strain originating from our microorganism collection attached very selectively to hydrophobic gold surfaces. At this moment, the idea of a biological gold tweezer was born,” explained Esther Gabor, BRAIN’s Manager Technical Business Development.
Will this metal recycling startup revolutionize
the battery and clean energy sectors? [Update]
February 2022 …Megan O’Connor, cofounder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a Beverly, Massachusetts-based developer of a recycling technology that extracts critical metals from batteries for a second life. “Our customizable and clean electro-extraction technology installs onsite to recover critical minerals from separated e-waste and low-grade mine tailings. We are the heart of metals processing – the crucial step that profitably separates critical minerals from other elements, transforming them into production-grade feedstocks for the energy transition.” … “At Nth Cycle, we’re taking a different approach to expanding the supply of critical minerals for the clean energy revolution. We leverage the power of electro-extraction: clean and modular technology for reliably recovering critical minerals from e-waste and low-grade mine tailings using only electricity. Our electro extraction technology is clean, customizable, consistent, and mobile.”
February 15, 2022, update: Nth Cycle today announced the closing of its $12.5 million Series A financing, co-led by the investment arm of Frankstahl, one of the largest privately held steel distribution companies in Europe, and Volo Earth, a Colorado-based venture firm that focuses on climate solutions.
https://nthcycle.com/ Turn battery, e-waste and low-grade mine tailings recycling waste streams into profitable commodities.
CUSTOMIZABLE ON SEVERAL FRONTS
PRODUCT YOU CAN SELL
Our process increases the marketability of critical minerals by producing production-grade feedstocks, typically over 50% purity. We can reliably recover over 90% of the target critical minerals, ensuring every bit of usable metal can be recovered and sold.
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
Dallas, Texas, USA
https://www.momentum.technology/
From trash to treasure: Electronic waste is mined for rare earth elements
A Revolutionary New Way to Recycle
Momentum Technologies, Ltd. Membrane Solvent Extraction (“MSX”) technology economically strips and extracts metals from electronic waste.
Invented by scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with funding from the US DoE’s Critical Materials Institute, our Membrane Solvent Extraction (“MSX”) technology economically strips and extracts metals from electronic waste. MSX is scalable, energy efficient and closed-loop. The MSX breakthrough allows us to build processing plants near sources of the Lithium-ion battery waste, lowering shipping and pre-processing costs. Additionally, the MSX method has a lower processing cost than any approach in the market, giving Momentum a significant competitive advantage when competing for scrap to recycle.
The patented process recovers more than 97% of the rare earth elements from scrapped magnets at purities exceeding 99.5% by weight. The recovered material can be made into new magnets for electronics and other applications. Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy; created by Syed Islam and Jason Smith.
Rare and Essential Earth Elements await in Coal Mining Waste
fly ash….
Rice lab’s flash Joule heating, extracts valuable elements from fly ash, bauxite residue, electronic waste
HOUSTON – (Feb. 9, 2022) – Rare earth elements are hard to get and hard to recycle, but a flash of intuition led Rice University scientists toward a possible solution.
CRITICAL MINERALS SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM – for WASTE from mining
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
Collection+ Recyclers for accumulating the Minerals & Elements
Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, South Africa
https://astrecycling.co.za/
We aspire to clean up the beautiful continent of Africa from electronic waste in an environmentally sound way. AST Recycling specialises in electronic waste and scrap catalytic converters recycling in South Africa and neighbouring countries. Our services extend beyond e-waste recycling and also include a full turn-key solution of IT Asset Management (ITAM) and IT Asset Disposal (ITAD).
Tokyo, Japan
https://www.dowa-eco.co.jp/en/service/e-scrap-recycling.html
The DOWA Group began as a mining company and has long dealt with non-ferrous metals which have both valuable and hazardous aspects. This experience has provided us with the technologies for extracting valuable resources and for detoxifying and reliably managing hazardous materials, while also giving us a profound awareness of the need to show consideration for the global environment.
At DOWA ECO-SYSTEM, our major services consist of recycling, waste management and soil remediation, and we are expanding our operations in Japan and other Asian countries. In order to satisfy the wishes of our clients, we thoroughly ascertain their needs and make it a fundamental point of our business to be transparent and to monitor all stages through to the end. We collect and safely transport recyclable materials and waste, using our own logistics system, and then properly detoxify and recycle them.
With these one-stop integrated services, we are striving to assist the development of sustainable societies in more countries, thereby helping to improve the global environment.
Today, [landfill] waste is valued quantitatively.
Current [landfill] value: $1.02 Trillion
What could it be worth qualitatively?
Qualitative value: $2.7 Trillion
Goslar, Germany
https://www.electrocycling.de
ELECTROCYCLING GmbH
THE BEST FOR OLD ELECTRONIC DEVICES.
Subtitles? Auto-Translate is available in many languages in Settings
We are a certified recycler of old electronic devices and offer environmentally friendly electro-recycling for all requirements. We work in all industries as well as individually.
Electrocycling in an easy way.
Electrocycling will provide you with the right solution for your recycling requests.
Prague, Czech Republic
https://www.enviropol.cz/en/
A LEADING WEEE PROCESSOR IN EUROPE SINCE 2009
How ENVIROPOL works:
PURCHASING – We buy your electrical and electronical waste. We can also help your firm with the economic and ecologically effective treatment of WEEE.
TRANSPORT– We arrange the collection of electrical equipment from the entire Czech Republic and surrounding countries.
PROCESSING – We provide the certified processing and ecological removal of WEEE on the most technologically advanced line in Europe. including data destruction.
SALES – We capture high-quality and accessible materials sell them to manufacturing plants.
Influencers & Expertise in Critical Minerals & Rare Elements
Carson City, Nevada, USA
https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/services
inventing circular supply chains, turning waste into profit
Already with 3 huge facilities across the USA……
Perhaps the largest lithium and cobalt mines in the western hemisphere can be found in the junk drawers of America. If we recover materials from old products (which can be sustainably broken down to their raw metals – nearly infinitely) we
significantly decrease society’s reliance on newly mined materials.
Redwood Materials recently recycled one of the first utility-scale energy storage projects with Southern Company & EPRI, in the State of Georgia.
If you have old lithium-ion batteries or e-waste, we encourage you to send them for recycling! Redwood accepts phones, laptops, tablets, power tools, electric toothbrushes, wireless headphones and any other rechargeable device with a lithium-ion battery.
“I’m looking into the future and seeing this freight train coming at us.” — JB Straubel, CEO of Redwood Materials
We help partners recycle batteries, electronics, and end-of-life products with environmentally-sound processing and refining technologies to produce key elements for circular supply chains. We have the unique ability to recover value from both the electronics components (gold, copper, silver, tin, etc.) and the battery materials (lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc.)
At Redwood Materials the Periodic Table is our roadmap
A surprising cross section of the entire table is present in a product as seemingly simple as a cell phone. Look for the key materials and chemicals we focus on, while we constantly expand this list.
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements from Renewables
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