Biological methods have been shown to actively complement and partially replace traditional methods in the mining and metallurgical industries. Biotechnological methods (microbiological adsorption and bacterial leaching) make it possible to obtain additional amounts of non-ferrous metals by recycling "tailings" from enrichment plants, sludge and metallurgical waste, as well as by processing so-called off-balance ores and extracting metals from seawater and wastewater. The application of biological methods intensifies processes of extraction of mineral raw materials, makes them cheaper, thus excludes the necessity of application of labour-consuming mining technologies; allows to automate the process.
Nature-like technologies have good prospects for their use in the mining complex of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.