What is urban mining?

Urban mining is the process of recovering valuable materials from cities’ discarded products and waste so they can be reused instead of being sent to landfill or incineration.

Unlike traditional mining, which has to do with drilling into the Earth’s surface to extract raw materials, urban mining is about changing the way we think about waste and making better use of limited resources in our increasingly urbanized world. As cities continue to grow, so does the volume of waste we discard, particularly electronics, or e-waste, which poses significant environmental challenges. However, innovative approaches to recovering these materials – like urban mining – could help to reverse the problem.

Take a typical smartphone. Containing over 60 different elements – including precious metals like gold, silver and palladium, as well as other valuable materials like neodymium, terbium, cobalt and lithium – each one is a treasure trove in the palm of our hands. There are now billions of smartphones in circulation, and by reclaiming materials from those discarded every day, urban mining can transform e-waste into valuable resources and, in the process, reduce our reliance on new mining and contribute to a circular economy.

In fact, inside all electronic gadgets – and many other everyday products – are plastics, metals and elements that could be reused. As we face the dual challenges of mounting waste and resource scarcity, urban mining offers an alternative path forward and highlights the immense potential of innovation to close the loop – turning discarded materials back into valuable assets.

What exactly is an urban mine?

An urban mine refers to the valuable materials already found within cities, products and waste streams. These can include valuable metals, plastics and critical raw materials as well as minerals and rare earth elements essential for modern technology. For example, lithium for rechargeable batteries and neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium used in magnets for wind turbines and electric vehicle motors. 

By recovering these finite materials, urban mining lessens the need for new mining operations, which often disrupt ecosystems and consume vast amounts of energy. This practice also supports a circular economy by reusing waste and transforming cities into resource centers, delivering a sustainable supply of materials for new products and industrial applications.

Why is urban mining important?

Urban mining plays a crucial role in both economic and environmental benefits by reducing the growing volume of e-waste and providing companies with another way of sourcing high-value metals and rare earth elements.

Compared to traditional mining, it has the potential to be a more resource-efficient and cost-effective alternative by shortening supply chains and reducing dependence on imported raw materials. This approach is crucial to the generative economy, where valuable resources flow back into production rather than becoming waste.

Environmentally, urban mining is also a win. New resource extraction takes a huge environmental toll. Though the recoverable potential of urban mining is limited to the stock of decommissioned materials, it’s a viable and valuable alternative to extracting natural resources and addresses issues like land degradation, rock waste, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, while keeping hazardous materials out of landfills.

That being said, urban mining is but one part of the transition from a linear to a circular economy and has its limitations. For example, efforts to make products using fewer raw materials have generally led to smaller devices with thinner layers. This, in turn, reduces the potential value of recycled materials, making their separation more complex because they are smaller. More thoughtful or sustainable manufacturing up front can reduce the need for urban mining at the end of a product’s useful life, while contributing to a circular economy overall.

Urban mining e-waste

When people talk about urban mining, they often think about reclaiming valuable metals from buildings and construction debris. However, there’s now a greater focus on e-waste as a rich resource, particularly from devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets.

These devices contain a variety of precious and rare materials, such as copper, nickel, dysprosium and even gold, which are in very high demand. According to the Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025, demand for key energy minerals is set to grow rapidly through 2040. In the Stated Policies Scenario, lithium demand increases fivefold, while demand for graphite and nickel doubles. Demand for cobalt, rare earth elements and copper is also projected to rise significantly, with increases ranging from 30% to 60%.

Urban mining gold from e-waste

Researchers estimate that across the European Union, 642 million smartphones are no longer in use, collectively containing around 8.6 metric tonnes of gold and other valuable materials worth $1.26 billion USD (€1.1 billion). Globally, e-waste is valued at around US$91 billion, or roughly three times the value of the world’s annual silver production.

Gold is one of the most valuable metals that can be recovered through urban mining, particularly from e-waste. In discarded electronics, it is found in small quantities in printed circuit boards, connectors and other components, but the volume of devices reaching the end of life makes the recovery opportunity significant. As advanced recovery facilities continue to emerge, e-waste is increasingly being recognized not only as a waste challenge but also as a source of untapped value within the circular economy. 

What is an example of urban mining?

Beyond discarded electronics or e-waste, the recovery of valuable materials from an urban mine can also be found in construction materials like concrete, timber and roofing materials, as well as in other used consumer goods, such as household appliances.

Instead of sending all these things to a landfill or to be incinerated, they’re recovered, sorted and various techniques are used to extract and separate out the high-value elements like metals and plastics, as well as rare earth elements essential for modern technology.

The urban mining recycling process:  How are materials recovered?

Urban mining is rapidly advancing as an alternative way to reclaim and repurpose valuable materials from waste. The process relies on cutting-edge technologies to sort, dismantle and efficiently extract key materials.

Here are the steps involved in the urban mining process:

1. Recovery and sorting: Urban waste, including electronics and construction debris, is gathered and sorted from various sources. As part of this, an increasing number of companies now offer buy-back programs for unwanted devices.
2. Disassembly: Individual items are disassembled, and materials are shredded to access valuable components and metals.
3. Separation and extraction: Techniques like magnetic separation or bioleaching extract valuable metals and rare elements. Companies like BRAIN Biotech and PX Group use biological extraction processes to recover gold from e-waste and other gold-containing waste streams.
4. Purification and refinement: Recovered materials are refined to meet quality standards for reuse.
5. Recycling and waste management: Refined materials are then reintroduced back into the value chain, while any leftover waste is recycled or safely disposed of.

H2: Dassault Systèmes supports the circular economy by considering urban mining practices in supply chains

Through the power of virtual twin technology, Dassault Systèmes is helping companies across all sectors find ways to reuse materials, reduce waste and improve the efficiency of their manufacturing and recycling processes.

Using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, companies can design, simulate, test and refine products with a focus on sustainability and consider from the onset how to design for disassembly, how their materials can be reused and even how urban mining can be incorporated into the supply chain.

Additionally, Dassault Systèmes’ Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) solutions enable the assessment of the environmental impact of materials in products from creation to end of life, pinpointing which materials and processes contribute most to waste, carbon emissions and resource depletion. At the same time, companies can identify more sustainable sources and strategically plan for the recovery of valuable materials, such as metals and rare earth elements.

This holistic and forward-thinking approach creates a pathway toward a more sustainable future where valuable materials continually cycle back into production and urban environments become more than sources of consumption but hubs of sustainable resource recovery.

READ MORE

• What are critical materials?
• Powering the energy transition with virtual twins
• What is the circular economy?
• Circular economy: Breaking the linear economy’s take-make-waste cycle
• Can we pave the way toward sustainable concrete?
• Recycling critical materials from e-waste for a circular economy

***Originally published on April 8, 2025 and updated on July 16, 2026.