“This is the last great extraction,” he says. “We need to build batteries, but after this it’s recycling; it’s the circular economy. We don’t see ourselves as selling metals; we want to rent them. We want to support brands using recycled metals. Our position is: let’s let the science do the talking.” To that end, the company has sponsored peer-reviewed research that shows, among other things, that while a kilogram of copper produced in a conventional mine generates 460 kilograms of waste, a kilo of copper produced from polymetallic nodules generates a mere 29 kilograms of waste.
