Let’s talk about urban mining. I don’t mean troops of bohemians engaged in city-fied spelunking as they trek through sewers and other underground spaces. No, I’m talking about real panhandling — the extraction of valuable materials from urban waste.
Once dismissed as something of a placebo for sustainability advocates — one supply-chain guru practically snorted in dismissal when asked to assess its ability to address critical mineral shortages — urban mining is assuming new significance as technology changes and there are more wastes to mine and improved techniques to mine them.
Japan is pacing efforts to find new sources of critical minerals and leading the surge in urban mining. Rightly so. This country was the first to experience China’s muscle-flexing and its domination of that market in 2010, when Beijing suspended exports of vital rare earth elements in retaliation for the arrest of one of its fishing boat captains in waters off the disputed Senkaku Islands.
