Growth in the use of technologies that use batteries poses a challenging question regarding supply chains. Companies require materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite, and demand for batteries grows all the time. Conventional mining is one of the sources of the required materials, but it is not the only available resource. Urban mining is looking at a different resource – the materials present in the products whose life cycle has come to an end.

This idea is particularly relevant when applied to batteries and electronic products since these goods can incorporate the materials extracted and produced into a usable form. When these products become obsolete, the materials contained in them do not automatically become worthless; they simply become a part of a product that is not needed anymore.

However, the challenge is to retrieve these materials effectively.

Obsoleted electronics will be located in houses, offices, data centers, warehouses and other locations, and batteries will appear in the waste streams where they are hard to trace and separate from other waste. Creating a useful secondary source thus requires proper collection and aggregation of materials.

Processing creates another difficulty. There are varying materials combinations in different products and batteries. Processing facilities must have proper sorting and processing techniques for separation of resources from the remaining product.

This is the point at which urban mining diverges from simple recycling of the product. It is not merely to ensure that the electronics stay out of the disposal cycle. Instead, it recognizes that the materials within the electronics could be a potential resource that can be recovered.

This way of thinking may influence how companies deal with obsolete technology. Rather than just trying to figure out where to dispose the battery or the electronics, organizations can think about whether the material within the battery or device can contribute to a secondary resource stream.

This process must also incorporate safety considerations. Lithium ion batteries require appropriate handling since they are known to present fire hazard if not disposed of correctly.

Urban mining will not immediately take the place of traditional mining operations. Nor does every discarded electronic product necessarily contain recoverable amounts of every material. 

The reason why this is valuable is because it gives rise to yet another way of obtaining resources from products that are already circulating within the economy.

With the adoption of technology increasing over time, the materials that would be used from old products will become more important resources to take into consideration.