Great success of the International Conference on Urban Mining in Barcelona

This activity developed in the Aula Magna of UPC has begun with the words of welcome of Elisabet Roca, director of the ISST, to then give way to various experts from different areas to discuss the main socio-political aspects and technological challenges of urban mining in the context of climate emergency.

Given the urgency and necessity ofabandoning fossil fuels is fundamental, urban mining, that is,recovery of minerals already extracted from electronic waste and other waste, can play a key role for a just transition.

Different speakers addressed important topics such as:

Martín Lallana (CIRCE - U Zaragoza) warned that the supply of critical materials is dominated by primary extraction while the losses for collection and recycling are very high.

Piotr Barczak (European Environment Office) highlighted the inadequacies of European regulations for the current implementation of an efficient urban mining system.

Verónica Martínez (ENT) also presented the results of his study on Urban Mining and its role in the climate emergency in the city of Barcelona, commissioned by ODG.

María Vidal has presented the point of view of the Waste Agency of Catalonia and warns that electronic product manufacturers should be legally responsible for what happens with their products and their recycling.

Benjamin Irvine, researcher at the Department of Geography of the UAB, presented the results on informal recycling, which is currently the most common on a global scale. Calls for immigration policies that value the work of scrap metal workers, their regularization could create direct jobs in the recycling sector.

Sofia Lara Schlezak (Colorado School of Mines, UNITAR) presented the results of her social engineering research project on Inclusive Urban Mining where methods of separation and recycling of electronic elements are taught to vulnerable populations to reduce risks and promote work.

As for the technical considerations of recycling critical materials, José Luis Cortina Dept. Ing. Chemistry UPC) explained the different metallurgical processes, highlighting its important energy consumption as well as the lack of qualification in this field in Spain today.

Subsequently, Toni Dorado (BioMetallum, Dept. Ing Minera, Industrial and ICT UPC) revealed the patented alternative process that his team developed within the UPC, using microbial bioprocesses to extract metals with precision, improving efficiency and extraction speed.

The conferences ended with the intervention of Julia Margeth Theuer, student of our Master in Sustainability Science and Technology, who presented the results of her research-action projectdeveloped in a course on the subject of urban mining in Barcelona.

Then a discussion table was held that allowed attendees to share their knowledge, experiences and concerns with the presence of important voices in urban mining and from administrative, academic and private sectors.

During the afternoon, the day ended with a Interdisciplinary Workshop by the team of BioMetallum where participants have been able to experiment with old electronic devices in the recovery of raw materials and critical waste. This workshop allowed us to understand how to identify and extract the different components of our mobiles, where attendees have realized that recycling the most modern phones has become much more difficult than that of the old, because the components have been highly miniaturized.