Björn Wallsten : “Underground urban infrastructure systems have from the beginning been installed under the assumption that they would function forever”
After a first episode looking for geological traces of cities and then an analysis of waste flows from large tunnel projects, the exploration of urban subsoils continues on Anthropocene2050 ! Björn Wallsten, a researcher at Uppsala University (Sweden), discusses his work on underground infrastructures in urban areas. Can they be transformed into strategic resource mines within a more circular economy context?
What is the Urk World?
The Urk World is a conceptualization I coined to describe the subsurface urban world of derelict infrastructure bits and pieces. Urk is short for “urkopplad” (disconnected) in Swedish and a commonly found abbreviation on infrastructure maps, used to denote which cables and pipes that are taken out of service so that maintenance workers have a better idea of what to expect when they dig up the city streets. In my research efforts, I have estimated the weight and spatial dispersion of the Urk World and how it has been allowed to accumulate.
Detail of a scanned paper map of an electricity network in Norrkoping (Sweden)
I regard the Urk World as the subsurface counterpart to Alan Berger’s urban design concept ‘drosscape’, which he makes use of to analyze wasted urban spaces in American cities. According to Berger, drosscapes occur as a byproduct of rapid urbanization, horizontal growth urban sprawl and defunct economic and production systems. Given how a vast technological apparatus is a prerequisite for the functioning of contemporary networked cities and that this apparatus is buried underground, it follows that drosscape dynamics also create left-over spaces underground. The Urk World is one such instance.
The Urk World has formed as a result of a long accumulated process dictated by a “disconnect and leave behind”-logic, and since it is veiled behind double courtains. The Urk World is a kind of backstage’s backstage: both waste and infrastructure systems are urban entities that are actively kept hidden from view, and from this follows that urks, being urban infrastructure waste, are even more so.
In your work, you have identified the immense obstacles that would present themselves very concretely to anyone who would want to extract at an industrial level the resources from the Urk World. Should this be seen as a theoretical demonstration of the limits of the circular economy?
No, I don’t think so. The reason for why the Urk World has so far not been exploited as a resource base is due to the current sociotechnical configuration of infrastructure systems, rather than any theoretical limits of the circular economy.
Underground urban infrastructure systems have from the beginning been installed under the assumption that they would function forever, and without the slightest idea of what should be done with them when they reach their end-of-life. When you scrutinize how infrastructures are managed and the political decisions made regarding natural resource extraction and recycling, you detect a large array of instances which could be altered for urk mining to make more economic sense. These instances are related to how maintenance is procured, the technologies for cable recycling, digging costs in urban streets, subsidies that favour mining over recycling, and so on.
Generally, the reason for why mining the Urk World is not economically feasible is not because it is inherently too expensive, but since primary mining is too cheap. So, rather than being a theoretical demonstration of the limits of the circular economy, I think that these difficulties shows how political decision-making must engage and think in all-comprehensive terms to achieve a more circular economy. To rely solely on the assumption that actors in the private sector will alter their business models to increasingly favor circular resource flows is simply not enough to achieve the kind of change needed regarding this issue.
Evaluation of the quantity and spatial dispersion of part of the urks in Norrköping (Sweden)
Are there already practical initiatives to improve the Urk World management ?
The most important influence that my work on the Urk World has had so far is that it has raised the issue of urban mining nationally in Sweden. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation for example fronts infrastructure recycling as an important possiblity in their mineral strategy, and the Swedish mining industry mentions it as an important resource base when they speculate about their sector’s future in exhibitions and such.
When it comes to actual cases of urk mining, the ones that I know of are highly pertinent on local conditions. Some Swedish cities have started to remove subsurface infrastructure for reasons of congestion, there is simply not enough room left under their streets to install more infrastructures.
Also, I think that investments in cable recycling technologies should be further encouraged. I know of at least one such Swedish initiative that was launched with the ambition to also be able to recycle all the plastic found in cables. The more materials you can recycle from an urk, the easier it is to achieve the required economy in such recycling endeavours.
Last, I think that the orchestrated efforts to dig the streets in Bergen, Norway, the so-called “Graveklubben”, looks promising in terms of that maintenance is done in sync between different infrastructure system owners. This should facilitate efforts to remove urks in connection to larger urban excavations.
Let’s imagine that all the conditions are met for an industrial exploitation of the Urk World. In your view, does the extraction of human artifacts from the ground also pose heritage issues, for instance for the archaeologists of the future who would like to make the history of cities?
I mean, yes, it quite obviously does pose such issue: if urks are dug up and recycled they would be a remnant lost for future archeological discoveries of urban life under late capitalism.
However, I also feel that the question presents something of a false dichotomy. The most pressing concern of our time is not the choice between urk exploitation and industrial heritage issues, but about how we handle the currently ongoing environmental crisis and our societies ever-increasing desires to exploit natural resources for economic growth. From where I stand, it is of uttermost importance that we become increasingly aware of how we use natural resources and make substantial efforts to decrease the material throughput in our societies. I think that all effort towards such an aim are worth pursuing, and while urk mining is not the sole answer, the Urk World is too big a deposit to neglect.
In more general terms, I adhere to Jane Jacobs visionary ideas from the 1960’s about how cities would be the mines of the future. This is where the idea of urban mining originated. In her somewhat underrated book “The Economy of Cities”, she claimed that cities will always be inefficient due to their chaotic density of people and material flows, and continously generate surpluses such as waste paper, restaurant garbage (and urks!), all of which can be recycled. This resonates a lot with how I regard cities; as a central terrain of possibilities and contestation in the transition towards a less resource- and energy-intensive future.
For further study :
- Björn Wallsten’s publications page : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bjoern-Wallsten
- A video report by France24 in connection with Björn’s work :
- Underground studies on Anthropocene2050 :
- Elsewhere on the net :
