Digging holes in the ground is actually much easier and cheaper than you'd think. Almost all of the costs of a running REE mine are in the separation part. REE

Digging holes in the ground is actually much easier and cheaper than you'd think. Almost all of the costs of a running REE mine are in the separation part. REE is usually used in small amounts in alloys, or especially in electronics, in very thin films and such. Because of this, simply shredding it doesn't quite do it -- after you ground it, what you have is basically a very poor ore of the material, and rather than extracting things from it, it would be cheaper to just get better stuff from the ground.