Russia can additionally receive several tons of gold annually without developing a single new mine. As Nikita Smirnov, Deputy Chairman of the TPP Committee on Precious Metals, told TASS at the "Mingeo Siberia" forum, the source should be scrap radio electronics – circuit boards, processors, contacts.
Today, there is no precise data on the market for the formation and collection of such scrap, and this is the main stopping factor. Without transparent statistics, it is impossible to assess the real volume of available secondary raw materials or to design processing capacities. The TPP, together with industry associations, is preparing proposals: how to encourage the population to hand over old equipment and how to motivate businesses to create processing facilities. The package of measures is planned to be submitted to the government in the third quarter of 2026.
For the gold mining industry, this is a diversification of the resource base: man-made "deposits" in the form of landfills and garages do not require subsoil use licenses or blasting operations. The expected increase of several tons is comparable to the annual production of an average mine, and at the same time, the problem of disposing of hazardous waste is solved. The key barrier is the economics of collection, and it is precisely this that the TPP and the Ministry of Industry and Trade are trying to adjust through reform.