Urban Mining Systems


Book Description

This book focuses on the fundamental concept of and current endeavors in “urban mining” among those who are interested in both metal resources and ecology. Systems for recycling and reusing precious metals and rare-earth minerals contained in used and discarded electronics are introduced in this book. The target audience is not academic researchers in the resource management and ecology fields but, rather, citizens who are concerned about our future environment and want to do something for the future.




Urban Mining and Sustainable Waste Management


Book Description

This book gathers selected high-quality research papers presented at the IconSWM 2018 conference, which explore various aspects of urban mining. In addition, they discuss how to achieve sustainable waste management systems, urban mining, landfill mining, material recovery, circular economy, etc., with the aid of effective waste management practices. Additional topics covered include maximum resource circulation and efficiency, key differences between landfill mining and urban mining, and how urban mining can be combined with the concepts of circular economy and sustainability.




Urban Mining for Waste Management and Resource Recovery


Book Description

Scientific management strategies can help in exploring anthropogenic wastes (human-made materials) as potential resources through the urban mining concept and be a panacea for sustainable development. This book covers five broader aspects of waste management and resource recovery in urban mining including solid and liquid waste management and treatment. It explains sustainable approaches of urban mining for the effective management of solid and liquid wastes and facilitates their conversion into secondary resources. Overall, this book provides details of urban mining and its different applications including current waste management problems, practices, and challenges faced worldwide. Presents a holistic approach for urban mining considering various types of wastes Describes contemporary integrated approaches for waste management with specific case studies Provides technical, social, and environmental aspects of solid and liquid wastes Considers aspects of sustainability and a circular bio-economy Incorporates pertinent case studies on water and wastewater management This volume caters to researchers and graduate students in environmental engineering, solid waste management, wastewater treatment, and materials science.




Sustainable Urban Mining of Precious Metals


Book Description

The rapid revolution in modern industry has led to a significant increase in waste at the end of the product lifecycle. It is essential to close the loop, secure resources, and join up the circular economy. This book provides a detailed review of extraction techniques for urban mining of precious metals including gold, silver, and the platinum group. The merits and demerits of various extraction methods are highlighted, with possible suggestions for improvements. The feasibility of hybrid extraction techniques, as well as the sustainability and environmental impact of every process, is explored. Offers a comprehensive review of different techniques used in recycling technology for urban mining of precious metals Describes the concept of urban mining and its correlation with circular economy Discusses feasibility of precious metal extraction and urban mines scope and their potential Explains the subject in-context of sustainability while describing chemistry fundamentals and industrial practices Provides technical flow sheets for urban mining of precious metals with diversity of lixiviant This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in extractive metallurgy, hydrometallurgy, chemical engineering, chemistry, and environmental engineering.




Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist


Book Description

“America’s greenest CEO” and the hero from the award-winning documentary The Corporation makes the urgent, compelling case that sustainable business pays. His story is now legend. In 1994, after reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, Ray Anderson felt a “spear in the chest”: the founder of Interface, Inc., a billion-dollar carpeting manufacturer, realized that his company was plundering the environment and he needed to steer it on a new course. Since then, Interface has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, and the goal is to reach zero environmental footprint by 2020. Thoughtful and winning, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist shows how Anderson revolutionized his company, in the process bringing costs down, improving quality, making it one of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” — and driving up profits. *The publisher has aimed for sustainability in all aspects of this book’s production, from the inks and glues to the trim size. The interior paper is 100% post-consumer recycled, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, and ancient-forest friendly. Instead of a jacket, the cover boards are wrapped in 100% recycled paper stock coated in a biodegradable varnish – and these are just two examples among many.




WEEE Recycling


Book Description

WEEE Recycling: Research, Development, and Policies covers policies, research, development, and challenges in recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The book introduces WEEE management and then covers the environmental, economic, and societal applications of e-waste recycling, focusing on the technical challenges to designing efficient and sustainable recycling processes—including physical separation, pyrometallurgical, and hydrometallurgical processes. The development of processes for recovering strategic and critical metals from urban mining is a priority for many countries, especially those having few available ores mining. - Describes the two metallurgical processes—hydro- and pyro-metallurgy—and their application in recycling of metals - Provides a life cycle analysis in the WEEE recycling of metals - Outlines how to determine economic parameters in the recycling of waste metals - Discusses the socio economic and environmental implication of metal recycling




Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Handbook


Book Description

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Handbook, Second Edition, is a one-stop reference on current electronic waste legislation initiatives, their impact, and the latest technological considerations for reducing electronic waste (e-waste) and increasing the efficiency of materials recovery. It also provides a wide-range of global and corporate examples and perspectives on the challenges that face specific regions and companies, along with the solutions they are implementing in managing e-waste, offering further insights on how discarded products can be treated. Sections introduce the reader to legislation and initiatives to manage WEEE and discuss technologies for the refurbishment, treatment and recycling of waste electronics. Further sections focus on electronic products that present particular challenges for recyclers, explore sustainable design of electronics and supply chains, discuss national and regional WEEE management schemes, and more. - Addresses the latest challenges and opportunities for electronic waste (e-waste) management, including e-waste collection models, circular economy implications, rare earth metal recovery, and much more - Draws lessons for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) policy and practice from around the world - Discusses legislation and initiatives to manage WEEE, including global e-waste initiatives, EU legislation relating to electronic waste, and eco-efficiency evaluation of WEEE take-back systems




Building from Waste


Book Description

”Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover“ is the sustainable guideline that has replaced the ”Take, Make, Waste“ attitude of the industrial age. Based on their background at the ETH Zurich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, the authors provide both a conceptual and practical look into materials and products which use waste as a renewable resource. This book introduces an inventory of current projects and building elements, ranging from marketed products, among them façade panels made of straw and self-healing concrete, to advanced research and development like newspaper, wood or jeans denim used as isolating fibres. Going beyond the mere recycling aspect of reused materials, it looks into innovative concepts of how materials usually regarded as waste can be processed into new construction elements. The products are organized along the manufacturing processes: densified, reconfigured, transformed, designed and cultivated materials. A product directory presents all materials and projects in this book according to their functional uses in construction: load-bearing, self-supporting, insulating, waterproofing and finishing products.




Planetary Mine


Book Description

A clarion call to rethink natural resource extraction beyond the extractive industries Planetary Mine rethinks the politics and territoriality of resource extraction, especially as the mining industry becomes reorganized in the form of logistical networks, and East Asian economies emerge as the new pivot of the capitalist world-system. Through an exploration of the ways in which mines in the Atacama Desert of Chile—the driest in the world—have become intermingled with an expanding constellation of megacities, ports, banks, and factories across East Asia, the book rethinks uneven geographical development in the era of supply chain capitalism. Arguing that extraction entails much more than the mere spatiality of mine shafts and pits, Planetary Mine points towards the expanding webs of infrastructure, of labor, of finance, and of struggle, that drive resource-based industries in the twenty-first century.




50 Ways to Mine the City


Book Description

Why dig deeper into the earth when tons of metal lay dormant beneath the city? Why exploit distant countries for scarce resources when they can be recovered from the waste cities produce every day? 50 Ways to Mine the City is an exploration of ways in which the city's outputs, byproducts, and under-utilized assets can be recovered, reimagined, and used in new ways. It reveals how innovators are transforming the function of the city from a consumer of resources to a generator of them.Featuring a diverse range of projects from around the world, this book creates a global narrative of how the circular economy, urban mining, and resource recovery are coming together to create a more sustainable and resourceful future.