A comparison of the effects of primary copper mining in Chile and secondary copper mining in Austria and the resulting CO2 emissions and economic revenues

Abstract

As the market price of copper is highly volatile, many countries have moved towards -urban mining- in order to reclaim secondary copper from infrastructure, electronics and other sources. The effects which this increased recycling of copper may have on the amounts of carbon dioxide emissions and profitability of the businesses are studied within this thesis. In order to study the economic effects of urban mining of copper, the manpower behind both secondary copper production and primary mining of copper was analysed as well as the profits of traditionally mine copper versus the secondary production option. The environmental aspect was analysed by exploring the carbon dioxide emissions of both opposing processes. It was found that the recycling of copper leads to reduced carbon dioxide emissions than the traditional copper mining in Chile. Urban mining was found to require less manpower than traditional copper mining, and is also the more profitable of the two processes.