alt Hacker NewsI heard a civil engineer make a claim once that the dust on the side of the road is about 300% more laden with precious metals like platinum, than random mining. I suppose this is all roads and not just American roads, though.
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mikepurvis • 11/20/2024
Isn’t it supposed to be mostly brake pads, rotors, and tire rubber?
Would be fascinating to imagine it being economically viable to vacuum up and reprocess it, but based on the above I’ve assumed it was worthless.
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Cody's Lab did a video with some experiments collecting and refining road dust. As I recall, he did manage to obtain a small bead of platinum-group metals but it didn't appear to be economically viable at least at a small scale.