Urban mining is increasingly being taken seriously by industry because it gives access to materials—such as expensive metals used in electronics—that are buried in waste tips and landfills.

Twenty five years ago, the German chemist Michael Braungart developed a new approach to recycling, now called "Cradle to Cradle" or "C2C" after the book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which he and the American architect William McDonough published in 2002.