Reuters reports that Australia, South Africa and Sweden are the tree states aiming to reduce the world's dependence on the Chinese supply for critical minerals for green technologies. This comes as green tech, such as electric transport solutions and renewables, are more needed around the world and our current supply of rare earth minerals is very limited.

Experts at the RMIT University in Australia estimate that there are over 16 million tons of unexploited rare earth elements worldwide and researchers in the US believe that the world produces 100.000 tons of rare earths per year from the production of phosphorus acid. Unfortunately, the materials aren't used and end up as waste.

The six projects that aim to diversify the supply chain target an annual output of 10.000 tons of neodymium and praseodymium oxide by 2027, which is believed to be as much as 8% of the increased demand for the two minerals.

Ryan Castilloux, managing director at Adamas, said that "these projects are the low-hanging fruit in the supply chain at the moment."

Some experts also say that recovering materials from waste streams is quicker than building up mines from scratch, which can take as much as 15 years to be commissioned in some cases.