Without affecting the major structure, equipment, fixtures, furnishings, finishes, and even non-structural components, like windows, doors, and divider walls, can be removed, when permitted, for their value in reuse or recycling or upcycling as raw materials into new products.
It is estimated that as much as 95% of a typical American house can be reused or recycled, given access to a variety of means of processing (gypsum board, lumber, etc.)
The name was coined in the 1980s by Hideo Nanjyo of the Research Institute of Mineral Dressing and Metallurgy at Tohoku University and the idea has gained significant traction in Japan (and in other parts of Asia) in the 21st century.
[1][2] Research published by the Japanese government's National Institute of Materials Science in 2010 estimated that there were 6,800 tonnes of gold recoverable from used electronic equipment in Japan.
[3] Originally, an urban mine is the stockpile of rare metals in the discarded waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) of a society.