The linear model has run out of room
For decades, economic growth has largely followed a linear model. Natural resources are extracted, transformed into products, consumed and eventually discarded. The circular economy challenges this model by seeking to retain the value of materials and resources for as long as possible, minimise waste, and create systems in which resources can be recovered, reused and returned to productive cycles.
In mineral processing this takes on a particular importance. Minerals are finite resources. At the same time, global demand for metals and minerals is expected to continue increasing, driven by industrial development, infrastructure, electrification and the global energy transition. The challenge is therefore not simply to extract more resources — but to create more value from the resources already available.
Why circularity matters for mining
The world needs more minerals. At the same time the industry faces increasing constraints on water, energy, ore quality, land, waste, capital and environmental impact. This creates a fundamental challenge: how can we increase mineral supply without proportionally increasing resource consumption and environmental pressure?
Circularity provides part of the answer. It is not limited to recycling metals at the end of their life — it begins much earlier, inside the mine and the processing plant.
Recover More — increase recovery of valuable minerals from the ore and from streams traditionally lost.
Consume Less — reduce the water, energy and consumables required per tonne of valuable product.
Reuse More — increase reuse and recirculation of process water, materials and other resources.
Waste Less — reduce the generation of tailings and process residues where technically and economically feasible.
Recover from Waste — recover valuable minerals from tailings, historical deposits and secondary streams.
Extend Asset Value — improve existing plants and extend their productive life through optimisation and retrofit.
The International Energy Agency emphasises that growing mineral demand will require innovation across mining, processing and recycling, including technologies that improve energy efficiency and reduce water consumption, waste generation and emissions.
The circular mineral processing model
The objective is not to eliminate waste at any cost. The objective is to minimise irreversible losses and maximise the economic value recovered from every resource stream.
Resource efficiency is the starting point
Circularity does not necessarily require a completely new plant. In many cases significant improvements can be achieved simply by understanding where resources are being lost within an existing process. A plant optimisation project becomes a circular economy project when it delivers higher recovery, lower water consumption, lower energy consumption and lower waste generation together.
The first question should therefore not always be “what new plant should we build?” It should be “how much more value can we create from the plant and resources we already have?”
UNEP emphasises that resource efficiency and circularity are increasingly necessary to decouple economic development from resource consumption and environmental degradation. For the mining industry, circularity is moving beyond an environmental ambition — it is becoming an economic, technological and strategic imperative.
From conventional plants to circular plants
We believe the future of mineral processing will be defined by a transition: from higher throughput to higher value; from more freshwater to water circularity; from waste disposal to resource recovery; from declining ore grades to advanced recovery; from replacing existing assets to optimising them; and from linear processing to circular processing.
This is the space where we create value.
“We engineer solutions that make mineral processing more productive, more resource-efficient and more circular.”