The Sludge Hub & Company

The Sludge Hub & Company is a network of Abandoned Mine Land (AML) that hosts ecological restoration and waste reutilization projects. It provides access, support services, and community to a wide range of eco-concerned organizations and individuals operating in post-coal spaces. The coal industry is in its death throes. Its departure has resulted in lost livelihoods for 130,000 Appalachians and a landscape scarred with removed mountaintops, underground chambers, and 12,400 miles of streams poisoned by Acid Mine Drainage (AMD). There are over 58,000 abandoned mines in the United States alone. You could call it a problem; we call it a home. In the wake of coal's departure, we see the opportunity to utilize the discarded scraps of the past and recast them into the foundation of a better future. Our mines are home to a community forged at the nexus of ecology and prosperity; where the most rugged and determined of Earth's champions test their innovations and tinker with the blueprints of eco-industrialism and the economy of survival.