One man’s trash is another man’s …
According to this news report, 60% of the world’s reserves of indium, 22% of silver and 16% of gold are sitting in Japan’s “urban mines”, aka landfills. Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science reckons that Japan could become a leading source of natural resources, despite having had almost no natural resources in the first place, if and when it becomes economic to mine the rubbish dumps.
2 Comments
Very interesting!
All right, now can someone please explain why Japan doesn’t just let those Indian (as in subcontinent) workers who garbage-pick for a living in a much more dangerous manner–you know, the ones economists cite as exemplars of society because they have fully analysed their risks and rewards and believe this is the ideal job for them–and let them do a lot of the sorting.
THAT would lower the cost of mining Japanese garbage, making it at least marginally more effective.