Dangerous and unnecessary: New report finds we shouldn’t mine the deep sea

BOSTON — According to a new report released Tuesday, we do not need destructive deep-sea mining operations to meet our critical mineral needs. In fact, the world trashes more copper and cobalt – metals used to build clean energy technologies – in our electronic waste than miners would likely extract each year from the central Pacific through at least 2035.

The report, We don’t need deep-sea mining, released by Environment America Research & Policy Center, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group just weeks ahead of a key international summit on the topic, outlines how mining operations could destroy vulnerable ecosystems. It also details how taking common sense steps such as reducing the electronic waste we generate can help meet our mineral demands.

“Deep-sea mining would devastate ancient, slow-growing and remote ecosystems that are home to deep-sea coral, anemones, sponges and more,” said Kelsey Lamp, one of the report’s authors and the director of oceans campaigns at Environment America Research & Policy Center. “Seabed mining would strip these habitats of life, introducing noise, light and pollution to places that are not equipped to handle it. We don’t know if these places will ever recover from mining damage – and that loss could have consequences for marine ecosystems beyond the seafloor.”

The report finds that deep-sea mining could irreparably alter hundreds or thousands of square miles of seafloor, and create plumes of sediment and mining waste that could spread even further. Yet, mining proponents are using the threat of potential shortages of critical minerals – such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and rare earth elements – as justification to carry out mining in one of the world’s last great wildernesses.

The report cites research indicating that deep-sea mining is not needed to meet the critical mineral needs of the energy transition. The authors outline how we can build a circular economy for critical minerals around the 5 Rs – the traditional 3 Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle, coupled with reimagining products for greater efficiency and durability and repairing products to extend their lifetimes. Strategies such as these could, according to research cited in the report, fully close global supply gaps for nickel and copper by 2030 and dramatically narrow gaps for cobalt, lithium and the rare earth element neodymium.

“Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, and many devices are made to be disposable. Why dive three miles below the surface, wreak havoc on a remote ecosystem, all to mine these materials and then put them in throwaway devices such as unfixable cell phones or disposable vapes?” explained Nathan Proctor, senior director of the Right to Repair campaigns at U.S. PIRG Education Fund. “The solution is obvious. Make long-lasting products, fix them when they break and recycle them when you can’t.”

This report comes as diplomats from around the world prepare to travel to Jamaica in July, where the International Seabed Authority could debate, for the first time, a proposal to put a moratorium on mining – or see a loophole pave the way for the first commercial exploitation of the deep sea for minerals ever undertaken.

To read the full report, and to see our interactive graphic on alternatives to deep-sea mining, visit our report page.