Smart Ground Project: A New Approach to Data Accessibility and Collection for Raw Materials and Secondary Raw Materials in Europe

Abstract

Steady Raw Materials (RM) supply is essential for the EU economy and increasingly under pressure to sustain the businesses and industries demand. The supply of RM is not only a matter of availability of primary but also of secondary raw materials (SRM). In fact a great amount of waste can be regained as practical and valuable SRM by enhancing the recovery processes from industrial, mining and municipal landfill sites, especially if we consider that Europe is highly dependent on the imports of several RM. Nevertheless, there is to date no inventory of SRM at EU level. Smart Ground project aims to facilitate the availability and accessibility of data and information on SRM in the EU, as well as creating synergy and collaboration between the different stakeholders involved in the SRM value chain. In order to do so, the Smart Ground consortium is carrying out a set of activities to integrate in a single EU database all the data from existing sources and new information retrieving pilot landfills as progress is made. Such database will enable the exchange of contacts and information among the relevant stakeholders, interested in providing or obtaining SRM. Finally, Smart Ground project will also spin out the SRM economy and employment thanks to targeted training activities, organized during congresses and dedicated meeting with stakeholders and end users interested in calculating the potentiality for SRM recovery from selected landfills, contemporary constituting a dedicated network of stakeholders committed to cost-effective research, technology transfer and training.

National Mineral Waste Databases as an Information Source for Assessing Material Recovery Potential from Mine Waste, Tailings and Metallurgical Waste

“…A key study identified was presented by Panagiotopoulou et al [21], who describe several cases of material recovery from mine waste within the EU and defined the most crucial steps from the idea towards realisation. Other publications used for the literature review were different key reports from the topic [7,14,[22][23][24][25][26], as well as CRIRSCO [27], JORC [28], PERC [29] and UNECE [30] classification codes for reporting the exploration results, mineral resources and reserves and the references contained in the aforementioned documents. The parameters identified included those related to basic site and commodity information, historical framework, data collection methodology, extractability and accessibility of the secondary resources, the policy and legislative environment, as well as the relevant chemical and physical properties.…”

New Developments for the Sustainable Exploitation of Ornamental Stone in Carrara Basin

“…Territorial environmental agencies from Northern Europe recommend [72] the reuse of recycled products and SRM coming from waste treatment, whenever possible, instead of using natural (non-renewable) resources. In general, sustainable land and resources management is based on the overall organization of materials flows and on the optimization of the recycling activities, including the evaluation of the more suitable and marketable recycled products obtained from EW treatment and recycling activities [73].…”

Towards Sustainable Mining: Exploiting Raw Materials from Extractive Waste Facilities

“…It is often necessary to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which requires integration of knowledge about the project as it is being designed, the natural and social environments in which the project is situated, and community and stakeholder concerns. Although it is evident that mining activity caused, and in some cases still causes, huge environmental and health impacts [25,26], recent research is changing the perspectives, considering EW facilities as potential new ore bodies to investigate and exploit for RM/CRM recovery [3,[27][28][29]. Old EW facilities often present a significant content of non-exploited minerals: modern processing technologies make possible the exploitation of minerals not mined in the past (e.g., sphalerite vs calamine) and potentially CRM which are often associated with minerals exploited for RM supply [12].…”