Knowing what’s inside
My own personal anthropogenic stock can be found in a drawer in my office – or at least, the parts of it that I really must sort out. Here, over the past few years, I’ve accumulated a selection of mobiles and smartphones that are waiting in vain for someone, some day, to call. There are far better uses for them, for each one contains raw materials – nickel, copper and iron, for example.
But my desk drawer here in Freiburg is only a miniscule part of the entire anthropogenic stock – the pool of materials produced by human activity – in this country. According to a survey by the German Environment Agency (UBA), more than 50 billion tonnes of materials were already bound up in this anthropogenic stock in 2010. We lock away raw materials in buildings and cars, in solar panels and electrical appliances. And sadly, when we no longer need them, we often fail to ensure that an equally high-quality and prompt solution is found for their reuse. There are many reasons for this: primary raw materials are often too cheap, industrial recycling has yet to be set up for some substances – and often, we don’t have a clear idea of what’s actually inside.
This is where urban mining comes in. It sees our habitat as a stock of raw materials and looks at how they can be recovered more efficiently when a building, vehicle or electrical appliance is no longer needed. This not only benefits the environment and the climate, but also counteracts Germany’s and Europe’s heavy reliance on imports of many raw materials – because whatever we can “mine” here at home won’t have to be sourced by us on the global markets.
But in urban mining, focusing on the past and what’s already there is not enough. We must also answer the question of how we can one day recover the raw materials – approximately 600 million tonnes – that we newly install, bolt down or fill in every year and how we can make this task easier in future. Product passports may be helpful here: they record in detail which resources a product contains, whether it’s a building or a TV.
By the way, my own anthropogenic stock will be dismantled before this issue is published – that’s a promise! Perhaps you’ll also find something in your own home that needs to be sent for recycling at last?
Yours,
Christof Timpe
CEO, Oeko-Institut