By Martin Banks - 23rd May 2011
The quarrying and mining sector can preserve our environmental assets
Janez Potocnik
The minerals industry says a "strong and healthy" raw material sector will help boost Europe's competitiveness.
The assertion, by Europe's minerals industry, comes as Green Week, the EU's flagship environmental event, got under way in Brussels.
The industry points out that many items, such as cars, houses, computers and mobile phones, depend on minerals.
It says minerals "play a key role" in the manufacturing of finished products as well as for renewable energy technology such as solar energy.
The European Industrial Minerals Association says that resource efficiency is "crucial" for reaching the EU's target for renewable energy by the end of the decade is met.
Its president Thierry Salmona said the European extractive industry has a "good track record" of environmental practices.
"Resource efficiency is key to delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth across Europe.
"This can only be achieved if we have a strong and healthy European mineral raw material industry."
European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik said, "The quarrying and mining sector can do a lot to preserve our environmental assets."
He expressed his readiness to joint work on implementing a resource-efficient European roadmap as part of the EU2020 strategy.
Meanwhile, a UN report says that failure to recycle many metals around the world not only causes wasted resources and environmental damage, it threatens shortages of elements essential to modern technologies.
It says, "In spite of significant efforts in a number of countries and regions, many metal recycling rates are discouragingly low, and a 'recycling society' appears no more than a distant hope."
The report, published on Thursday, is said to be the first attempt to gather accurate and consistent information about the extent to which metals are collected, processed and reused in new products.
"The weak performance is especially frustrating because, unlike most other resources, metals are inherently recyclable," says the study.
The study found less than one-third of some 60 metals studied have an end-of-life recycling rate above 50 per cent while 34 elements are below one per cent recycling.
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