Research project

Urban Mine of the Netherlands

What is the size and composition of the Dutch urban mine? How will the urban mine develop over time, and how can it be used as a source of materials as part of a circular economy?

Duration: 2019 - 2026
Contact: Janneke van Oorschot
Funding: funded by PBL as part of the Meerjarenprogramma Monitoring en Sturing Circulaire Economie, supporting the Dutch policy on circular economy
Partners: Statistics Netherlands (CBS)
Metabolic
Dutch Environmental Planning Agency (PBL)
TNO
Universiteit Utrecht, Copernicus instituut
Several MSc students have contributed to these projects

Short abstract

In a circular economy, the urban mine – the in-use stocks of products and infrastructures – is the material basis for our society. Yet almost nothing is known about the urban mine. In a series of projects, a fairly complete picture of the Dutch urban mine is developed, and future oriented explorations are done about its potential as a source of secondary materials.

Project description

Scientific relevance
Pioneering research into the size and composition of the Dutch urban mine, covering buildings, infrastructure, electricity, heating, water and sewage systems, vehicles, consumer goods and electronics, and industrial machinery.

2. Material & Methods
An inventory of the in-use stocks of materials in the abovementioned applications by collecting data from statistics, experts in the field, branch organisations and scientific literature, delivering a rather comprehensive database of the Dutch urban mine. Scenario analysis for buildings and the electricity system, using scenarios from the field and adding a dynamic MFA analysis to estimate future flows and stocks of material

3. Results & Conclusions
The urban mine is very large and has potential to become an important source of materials in the future, allowing extraction of resources to be reduced while maintaining the in-use stocks and the functions they provide. This potential cannot be expected to be realized in the near future, as life spans of the major applications are long and changes therefore go slowly. If we want this potential to be reached in the future, we have to start designing systems for circularity now.

4. Follow-up
The series of projects is still ongoing. They are intended to support the Dutch circular economy policy, and are used as input for the ICER reports of PBL (Integrale Circulaire Economie Rapportage 2023 (pbl.nl))

5. Why Leiden University?
Circular economy and urban mining are key areas in the research field of industrial ecology.

6. Social relevance
It becomes increasingly clear that we need to look at resources if we want to tackle the major problem of our times, climate change. Materials presently contribute over 50% to CO2-emissions. On the other hand, materials are needed to build up our renewable energy system, and worldwide materials are needed to build up the infrastructure in developing economies. A circular economy may be the only way out of this dilemma!

Reports Urban Mine + Data

Report	Data
De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 1	De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 1
De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 2	De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 2
De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 3
De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 4	De Nederlandse Urban Mine deel 4