Sustainability assessment of bioleaching for mineral resource recovery from MSWI ashes

About 46 million tons of combustion ashes from municipal waste are produced annually at the global level. These materials are equivalent to low-grade ores for metal recovery, as well as there is an opportunity to recover secondary raw materials for reuse in sustainable applications, as the circular economy demands. Bioleaching has the potential to be further developed into affordable biotechnology for resource recovery in waste management. The chapter provides information on the mineralogy and geochemistry of fly and bottom ashes from Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI), then examines bioleaching experiments that facilitate resource extraction and recovery from these anthropogenic materials. The analysis of strengths and weaknesses of this biomining-biotechnology allow assessing the sustainability of bioleaching as a drive for further challenges and opportunities.