Urban Mining: the future of metal and materials recycling must be found in towns and cities
Urban mining supports the belief that towns, cities and the existing building stock can be seen as the future mines for recycling metals and materials. The concept originated around electronic waste, but is slowly being extended to recycling other materials.
In the construction industry, which accounts for almost 35% of all our waste in Denmark, we are fortunately becoming more adept at seeing opportunities for circular management of materials.
Architects are becoming more aware of designing from existing raw materials rather than virgin ones, and demolition workers are becoming better at separating building materials during demolition and processing them in a way that they can be returned and reused.
And companies like Gamle Mursten Tech help to ensure that knowledge and documentation follow when there is an opportunity to recycle bricks.
