In the southeastern county of Gaoping, located deep within China’s premier coal province of Shanxi, a massive new recycling facility has quietly begun operations. It transforms the waste into high-value industrial and building materials. 

Reportedly, its daily output sounds like a standard quarry operation: 1000 tonnes of sand, gravel, and unburnt bricks. The raw material was extracted from coal gangue — the ultra-hard, toxic rock waste left after mining and washing coal.