Urban mining: Concepts, terminology, challenges

摘要

It is becoming fashionable to "close the loop", "secure resources" and "join the circular economy." Processes such as recycling, resource recovery, urban and landfill mining, waste minimisation and material recovery and concepts such as the circular economy, eco-design, ecological footprinting and zero waste are terms that are being increasingly used by politicians, industrialists and businesses. This signifies that society is starting to catch up with the waste and resource management community in recognising that the resources which are contained in wastes should be recovered and utilised as much as possible. There are multiple reasons for this significant moment, including: concern about increasing global consumption of non-renewable resources, progressive shortages of primary raw materials, reduction of space available for final disposal of wastes, the need for quantity and volume reduction of wastes generated, the need for control of environmental contamination caused by emissions from waste treatment, changing social attitudes towards waste management, etc.