What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

Pollution and waste, climate change and biodiversity loss are creating a triple planetary crisis. In response, UN Environment Program executive director Inger Andersen has called for waste to be redefined as a valuable resource instead of a problem. That's what urban mining does.

We commonly think of mining as drilling or digging into the earth to extract precious resources. Urban mining recovers these materials from waste. It can come from buildings, infrastructure and obsolete products.

An urban mine, then, is the stock of precious metals or materials in the waste cities produce. In particular, electronic waste, or e‑waste, has higher concentrations of precious metals than many mined ores. Yet the UN Global E‑waste Monitor estimates US$62 billion worth of recoverable resources was discarded as e‑waste in 2022.

Urban mining can recover these "hidden" resources in cities around the world. It offers sustainable solutions to the problems of resource scarcity and waste management. And it happens in the very cities that are centers of overconsumption and hotspots for the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change.

What sort of waste can be mined?

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