Integration of resource recovery into current waste management through (enhanced) landfill mining

• Europe has somewhere between 150,000 and 500,000 landfill sites, with an estimated 90% of them being “non-sanitary” landfills, predating the EU Landfill Directive of1999/31/EC. These older landfills tend to be filled with municipal solid waste andoften lack any environmental protection technology. “Doing nothing”, state-of-theart aftercare or remediating them depends largely on technical, societal and economic conditions which vary between countries. Beside “doing nothing” and landfill aftercare, there are different scenarios in landfill mining, from re-landfilling thewaste into “sanitary landfills” to seizing the opportunity for a combined resource-recovery and remediation strategy. This review article addresses present and futureissues and potential opportunities for landfill mining as an embedded strategy incurrent waste management systems through a multi-disciplinary approach. In particular, three general landfill mining strategies are addressed with varying extentsof resource recovery. These are discussed in relation to the main targets of landfill mining: (i) reduction of the landfill volume (technical), (ii) reduction of risks andimpacts (environmental) and (iii) increase in resource recovery and overall profitability (economic). Geophysical methods could be used to determine the characteristics of the landfilled waste and subsurface structures without the need of aninvasive exploration, which could greatly reduce exploration costs and time, aswell as be useful to develop a procedure to either discard or select the most appropriate sites for (E)LFM. Material and energy recovery from landfilled waste canbe achieved through mechanical processing coupled with thermochemical valorization technologies and residues upcycling techniques. Gasification could enablethe upcycling of residues after thermal treatment into a new range of eco-friendlyconstruction materials based on inorganic polymers and glass-ceramics. The multi-criteria assessment is directly influenced by waste- and technology related factors, which together with site-specific conditions, market and regulatory aspects,influence the environmental, economic and societal impacts of (E)LFM projects.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik -- Miljöledning (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering -- Environmental Management (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

resource recovery

waste management

economic assessment

environmental impacts

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

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