One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. “Waste from abandoned and bankrupt mines has contaminated more than 12,000 miles of waterways. Now states are looking at how to extract critical elements from those waters to try to offset the high cost of cleanup.” WaPo (Gift Article): In coal country, a new chance to clean up a toxic legacy. “While these initiatives don’t currently pay for themselves, they are gaining traction for their role in tackling the legacy of dirty energy while trying to minimize the environmental impact of the new energy that’s replacing it. ‘If your sludge has value, why throw it in the garbage can?'” (That’s basically the question that led me to creating this newsletter…)