Trash is cash: ‘urban mining' for strategic metals in your neighbourhood

Euronews

6 days ago

The old smartphone hiding in your drawer probably holds tiny portions of lithium, cobalt, and rare-earth metals. It is estimated that 700 million old phones are lying around in Europe.
The concept known as "urban mining" involves finding materials in existing products, as opposed to "primary" mining where ground resources are exploited.
The EU has made it a priority to secure supply chains for the raw materials that are essential for green and digital technologies. Dozens of them have been classified as "critical" and "strategic" by the European Commission. However, 90% of these elements are currently imported from abroad.
According to EU data, around 1% of the valuable materials consumed in the EU come from recycling. The Critical Raw Materials Act, adopted in 2024, has set a target of reaching 25% by 2030.
The Commission's objectives is to boost the recycling of electric waste, one of the fastest-growing waste streams.
In each member state, organisations are responsible for collecting and transporting e-waste to the continent's 2,700 processing facilities. The recycling facilities are expected to meet a growing share of the demand from European foundries, which traditionally source their supplies from other continents, such as Asia.
Several challenges persist: from the profitability of extracting the smallest parts of materials, to "electronic hibernation": According to a study, each European family has on average 74 electronic devices, 13 of which are unused but hoarded for various reasons, data privacy concerns being one of them.
The EU Commission is due to present a new Circular Economy Act in 2026 to foster the competitiveness of circular models in various sectors such as construction and demolition. This accounts for 40% of the total waste weight in the EU, mainly traditional raw materials such as concrete, aluminum, steel, and glass, which, again, are often imported.
While much of the demolished concrete is considered recycled, it is actually crushed for use as an aggregate base, for example in road construction. More and more technologies are enabling recycling rather than downcycling. Emerging techniques are transforming old blocks into high-quality concrete.
Furthermore, many leftover materials such as plastics and wood are often not recovered and are sent to incineration or landfill. New sorting techniques are helping to increase the recycling rate.
Another trend is the reuse of materials. Elements such as concrete blocks, windows, and bricks can be dismantled for reuse. A more modular design of buildings can also allow for greater circularity.
Some countries have already adopted an approach aimed at requiring inventories of the materials present in buildings before any demolition.
Like the reuse and repair of electronics, building renovation remains a better solution than demolition in terms of environmental impact, according to experts.
According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), 20-25% of the life cycle emissions of the current EU building stock are embedded in building materials. Circular economy-based approaches to renovation can help reduce embedded greenhouse gas emissions.
'We have a lot of policy already, what we need is to get the economics right', European Commissioner for the Environment Jessika Roswall told Euronews.
Roswall is the architect of the EU Commission's future Circular Economy Act, which is to succeed the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) adopted five years ago.
The initiative should include updating existing rules to foster 'circular competitiveness' and boost the EU's recycling rate. In 2022, only 12% of products consumed came from recycling.
The plan could include a revision of the WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive, which governs the rules and targets for the collection and treatment of e-waste, from small batteries to photovoltaic panels.
In almost 20 years, the WEEE Directive has led to a tenfold increase in the amount of e-waste recovered and properly treated in the EU, but not all member states have achieved the targets set. Quantities of WEEE are still not collected, improperly treated or illegally exported.
The EU wants to increase the proportion of recovered materials in order to reduce the proportion of virgin materials imported for new electrical and electronic equipment. The Circular Economy Act should focus on the recovery of critical raw materials. This strategy is presented as a means of strengthening the EU's economic security against a backdrop of international trade tensions.
'The circularity numbers are too low. This geopolitical situation must be the time when we actually go circular', Commissoner Roswall told Euronews.
In 2024, the EU adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRM Act), which is intended to strengthen the EU's security of supply of a series of metals and other components essential to the green and digital transitions.
The European Union has drawn up a regularly updated list of materials considered 'critical', such as rare-earth metals, copper or cobalt, and another of materials considered 'strategic', such as bismuth and magnesium metal.
The EU's objective is to achieve a recycling rate of 25% of CRMs, compared with around 1% today. This requires investment in the necessary infrastructure as part of the Clean Industrial Deal presented last year.
The circular economy should also apply to other sectors of the economy, such as construction, textiles and the automotive industry. The Act in preparation is set to provide for the revision of the Waste Framework Directive and promote the creation of a 'common market for waste'.
Despite efforts at harmonisation, the existing fragmentation between national requirements, as in the case of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems, raises problems of competition and costs. An intra-EU waste market is wanted by Brussels, which conversely recently tightened the rules against the export of waste outside the EU.
'We need to change our mindset and see waste as an asset', Roswall added, specifying that she also considered water as waste. The EU recently strengthened its legislation on urban wastewater. It plans to maximise the reuse of water for irrigation in the continent's largest treatment stations.
Alongside recycling, the EU is also encouraging the extension of product lifetimes. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) entered into force in 2024, and is aimed at creating economic opportunities in remanufacturing, recycling or repair.
The European Commission has put forward the concept of a 'right to repair', in the form of incentives to make repairing products easier and more attractive, in order to reduce waste.
A directive aimed at 'Empowering consumers for the green transition' was also adopted to offer consumers better information on the products durability.
According to a 2020 survey, 77% of Europeans said they would rather repair their goods, but had to buy new ones because of the lack of repair services.