Raw materials in 2016 scrap worth an estimated $64.61 billion, including metals such as gold, silver, copper, platinum and palladium, U.N.-backed study said.
Erdenet, which produces 530,000 tons of ore annually, is one of Asia’s biggest copper and molybdenum mines and a top tax contributor to the country’s $12 billion economy.
The remote town of Nueva Fuerabamba was built to house around 1,600 people who gave up their village and farmland to make room for a massive, open-pit copper mine.