Bacteria have natural enemies: bacteriophages

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The environmental regulations for mining in China are very lax. Proper disposal of the toxic sludge is the exception; instead, it is permanently deposited in settling tanks. According to a case study on the environmental and social impacts, wastewater is also discharged unfiltered into rivers, while toxic exhaust gases fall over large areas as acid rain. Most countries stopped mining rare earths in the 1990s because imports from China were cheaper and the environmental problems were a long way off.

An awareness of the problem of dependence on just one export country only developed with the introduction of export quotas in 1999: the Chinese Ministry of Commerce determined annually how many tons of rare earths could be exported. Despite this, new mines were not being built everywhere in the world. There are several hurdles to overcome before establishing one's own supply:

Complex equipment is required to extract the individual metals from the mineral mixture.
The increasing supply would cause the market belgium consumer email list value of the metals to fall, making new plants hardly profitable.
Clean production without environmental destruction is hardly possible.
At the beginning of 2015, the export restrictions were lifted again. However, in view of the increasing demand for the energy transition and the switch from combustion engines to electric motors, the EU is working on an independent supply. In 2020, the European Commission launched the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA). It aims to develop domestic sources of rare earths, establish recycling and diversify imports from third countries.

However, as long as there are no legal requirements for recycling quotas, secondary raw materials must be cheaper than new goods. Here, the legislator is required to stipulate a minimum proportion of recycled materials in new devices as soon as they are available on the market.

According to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, the ratio of existing resources to annual production of rare earths is as follows: “The resources of rare earths amount to more than a thousand times the current annual production and are thus significantly higher than for all other economically strategic metals. In countries with large deposits such as Brazil or Russia, however, there is currently only very limited or no mining. The main problem is the economic viability of rare earth projects, as the facilities required for further processing are very complex and therefore costly. Low world market prices and environmental concerns are also preventing any of the numerous well-exposed rare earth projects outside China from going into production.” (Source: Scientific Services of the German Bundestag)

Alternative sources
So far, the recycling rate is one percent. At best, magnetic materials are recycled. In electrical devices, the concentration of rare earths is usually so low that recycling using known methods is not worthwhile.