Assessing the Urban Mining Potential in the City of Huddersfield, UK

With the increasing demand of metals from industrial facilities and the construction sector, the abundance of discarded metals within the infrastructure of a typical city may be considered as an attractive source for metal recovery. The term “urban mining” refers to the process of recovering metals from secondary metal stocks in urban locations, which provide an alternative resource to conventional mountainous mines. An integrated urban mining potential assessment comprises of two steps: (a) mapping and size estimation of a certain metal reserve and (b) evaluation of the economic feasibility of its recovery, by determining the necessary extraction process. The infrastructure systems (or infrasystems) in the city of Huddersfield, and UK in general, are to a great extent buried underground and surface cables are usually immediately removed after being decommissioned. Thus, the major infrasystems (and the corresponding metals) in the studied region are (a) AC/DC power (Cu/Al), (b) telecommunication (Cu), (c) natural gas (Fe) and (d) water mains (Cu/Fe). In the current study, we focus on the assessment of urban iron mining potential, through mapping the spatial distribution of hibernating iron deposits in Huddersfield, identifying potential hotspots in the city and assessing alternative options for their recovery.