Urban Mining

The lifecycle of an REE specimen shouldn’t end at the factory door. “Urban Mining”—the recovery of REEs from end-of-life electronics—is the new frontier of material science. At tpak.ca, we explore how nanotechnology can be used for in-situ remediation, cleaning up legacy mining footprints while capturing discarded elements back into the supply chain. A circular economy for REEs reduces our reliance on new primary extraction and mitigates ecological impact. True material harmony is achieved when we treat waste not as a liability, but as a secondary source of high-purity specimens for the next generation.