Skip to main content

Urban mining: revitalized recycling that goes beyond electronics


Remember when recycling, re-using, re-conditioning, refurbishing, and revitalizing were the
environmental buzzwords?  It started a long time ago when families were recycling vegetable scraps to feed their chickens or to make a compost pile to renurture the soil. Then soft drink and beer bottles were recycled, and then cans. Government offices and businesses installed boxes to recycle paper.


Now urban mining is the introduced concept to handle recycling in a rapidly changing technological age. Urban mining generally refers to the resources in cities that can be recycled and reused. It includes virtually everything, but most often refers to small electrical and electronic items, such as phones, laptops, i-pads, and the like. It can also refer to large structures, such as buildings.  
Where old computers and electronics were gathered in cities and shipped to developing countries to be used by communities – thus recycling the items – they are more likely now to be collected for separation and re-use within the city they originated from. Sorting outdated and abandoned technological equipment so that the valuable metals and materials can be recycled is becoming more popular. This type of mining reduces costs in the city of origin and saves on transportation costs to ship them elsewhere. The extraction of metals and chemicals for clean use has long term positive impacts on the environment, but it is still in its infancy.


Mining equates to exploration and extraction, as well as prospecting for worthy and useful minerals. Urban mining is exactly that, as well as recycling, but it is also much more. Companies are being urged to think about the life of a product, and its reuse or multiple use, at the design stage. Can the product be broken down safely into individual substances? Is it sustainable?


And it applies to chemicals and by-products and waste, and not merely to the hard shell of a product, or its metals (such as gold, copper etc.). Urban water – kitchen and bathroom and cooking water – can be “mined” or recycled for further use. So can steam, and gas, and chemicals, and waste (just like worm castings can be reused in the garden, manufacturing and production waste can be considered for reuse). All forms of energy are also being included into the concept of urban mining. Everything from bones to feathers, from paper to plastic, from metals to manure, from eggshells to human hair, can all be considered as part of urban mining. So urban mining is more than electronic recycling, it encompasses a holistic approach to sustainable living.


http://urban-mining.com

http://urbanmining.org
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...
1 comment
Read more