Sustainable Management, Treatment and Recovery of Waste in an European Context: Urban Mining and the Circular Economy

The paper provides an overview of waste management alternatives in the European framework of the circular economy model, with emphasis on the use of waste as secondary sources for the recovery of raw materials and materials, especially critical raw materials and highlighting the importance of economic and environmental impact of this approach. In this context, the following were taken into account: analysis of European urban waste management practices; highlighting the relevance of waste recovery in the context of the circular economy; recovery of critical raw materials (CRM) from specific waste, as secondary sources of raw materials. In the last part of the paper, a series of methods for the recovery of secondary and critical raw materials from waste were highlighted, analyzing the case of recovery of cobalt from secondary resources, such as waste lithium batteries, as important for lithium and a few other critical materials, as well