| 1. |
- Hernández Parrodi, Juan Carlos, et al.
(författare)
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Integration of resource recovery into current waste management through (enhanced) landfill mining
- 2019
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Ingår i: Detritus. - : Eurowaste SRL. - 2611-4135 .- 2611-4127. ; 08, s. 141-156
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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.
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| 2. |
- Johansson, Nils, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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A NEW DAWN FOR THE BURIED GARBAGE? : AN INVESTIGATION OF THE MARKETABILITY FOR PREVIOUSLY DISPOSED WASTE
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sardinia 2015. - Padova, Italy.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper examines the market potential of disposed waste, a resource that is increasingly emphasized as a future mine. A framework with gate requirements of various outlets was developed and contrasted with excavated waste sorted in an advanced recycling facility. Only the smallest fraction by percentage had an outlet, the metals (8%), which were sold according a lower quality class. The other fractions (92%) were not accepted for incineration, construction materials or even re-deposition. Previous studies have shown similar lack of marketability. This means that even if one fraction can be recovered, the outlet of the other material is often unpredictable, resulting in a waste disposal problem, which easily prevents a landfill mining project altogether. However, the potential in landfills could better be exploited if technology and regulations adapts to disposed garbage.
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| 3. |
- Carlsson, Anders, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability Jam Sessions for vision creation and problem solving
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 98, s. 29-35
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents a concept for creating arenas where expertise from certain branches of industry can interact with sustainability professionals and researchers to address and solve sustainability challenges. The concept Sustainability Jam Session (SJS) builds upon the idea of conducting creative meetings between professionals in “jam sessions,” similar to those associated primarily with music and improvisation. Approaches such as these have been used in the IT sector over the past decades, but this is the first attempt to apply it in the area of sustainability. SJS's were tested at the 2012 Greening of Industry Network Conference (GIN2012) and here we report our experiences from arranging six SJS's at the conference.A typical process of an SJS includes a preparatory phase, the actual jam, and documentation and follow up. The preparatory phase mainly involves identifying hosts and topics to be addressed at the SJS, followed by attracting participants. The jam is started by an introduction of the topics, a technical visit (if appropriate), and a problem-solving workshop, ending with a wrap-up reporting. Thorough documentation is necessary for following up the results of the SJS and preparing for implementation of the identified solutions.We conclude that skill, structure, setting, and surrender of control, as well as finding “red and hot” topics for the jams are the key factors for successful SJS's.Based on our experiences from GIN2012, we recommend other research conferences in the sustainability field use SJS's if the intention is to boost the interaction between the conference and the host region or non-academic organizations in general. We also suggest that a similar approach can be used in regional development for creating an infrastructure for learning and transformation towards sustainability and initiatives for open innovation.
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| 4. |
- Einhaeupl, Paul, et al.
(författare)
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Eliciting stakeholder needs - An anticipatory approach assessing enhanced landfill mining
- 2019
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Ingår i: Waste Management. - : PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD. - 0956-053X .- 1879-2456. ; 98, s. 113-125
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Landfill owners, governmental institutions, technology providers, academia and local communities are important stakeholders involved in Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM). This concept of excavating and processing historical waste streams to higher added values can be seen as a continuation of traditional landfill mining (LFM) and seems to be an innovative and promising idea for potential environmental and societal benefits. However, ELFMs profitability is still under debate, and environmental as well as societal impacts have to be further investigated. This study provides a first step towards an anticipatory approach, assessing ELFM through stakeholder integration. In the study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with various stakeholders, involved in a case study in Flanders, Belgium. Participants were selected across a quadruple helix (QH) framework, i.e. industrial, governmental, scientific, and local community actors. The research comprises 13 interviews conducted with an aim to elicit stakeholder needs for ELFM implementation using a general inductive approach. In total 18 different stakeholder needs were identified. The paper explains how the stakeholder needs refer to the different dimensions of sustainability, which groups of stakeholders they primarily affect, and what types of uncertainty could be influenced by their implementation. The stakeholder needs are structured into societal, environmental, regulatory and techno-economic needs. Results show additional economic, environmental, and societal aspects of ELFM to be integrated into ELFM research, as well as a need for the dynamic modeling of impacts. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 5. |
- Esguerra, John Laurence, 1991-
(författare)
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Developing strategies for improved economic performance and reduced climate impact of landfill mining in Europe
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Landfill mining refers to the re-circulation of resources from the previously deposited wastes. It is an alternative approach for managing landfills that integrates resource recovery with site remediation. Several resources that can be recovered in landfills include scrap metals for recycling, combustibles for energy recovery, and inert materials for construction applications. In addition, land can be recovered for alternative uses, or landfill void space can be liberated for the deposition of future wastes. At present, landfill mining is still an emerging concept with few project implementations. Consequently, the assessments of its economic and climate implications are case study-specific, limiting the understanding of its potential in a wider geographical scope. This thesis aims to assess the economic performance and climate impact of landfill mining in Europe towards the development of sound strategies for implementation. Different project setups are assessed in relation to varying factors at the site level such as waste composition and landfill settings, and at the system level such as policy and market conditions and background material and energy. In doing so, a factor-based method is developed and applied to generate multiple scenarios (531, 441 scenarios per project setup) and determine the underlying important factors and their interrelations that drive the results. Such understanding is used to develop and discuss strategies for improvement by addressing relevant questions for specific stakeholders, including project investors (i.e., which landfill sites to prioritize?), landfill mining practitioners (i.e., how to set up such projects?), and policymakers (i.e., which policy instruments can effectively support such projects?). Results show that landfill mining is preferable in terms of climate than economy. In general, about 50% of the scenarios are climate beneficial, while only about 20% of the scenarios are profitable. Possible economic and climate improvements are shown by employing internal thermal treatment of combustibles and extending fines residue utilization as construction aggregates. However, these require overarching conditions such that the choice of project setup must be in line with the selection of landfills for mining. Preferable site and system-level conditions are identified in general but it is also discussed that the plausibility of finding such conditions may be difficult at present. This steers the development of more tailored strategies on what can be done now by the landfill practitioners in terms of setting up projects under current policy and market conditions in specific regions, or what can be done by the policymakers in terms of implementing various policy instruments that can drive such changes at the system level. In this regard, the future of landfill mining research can be guided towards addressing key challenges and potential solutions for improvement elicited through a generic and learning-oriented assessment. Furthermore, this thesis highlights the role of assessment as a tool for learning and guiding the development of emerging concepts such as landfill mining.
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| 6. |
- Esguerra, John Laurence, 1991-
(författare)
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Economics of Landfill Mining : Usefulness and Validity of Different Assessment Approaches
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Landfill mining (LFM) is an alternative strategy to manage landfills that integrates remediation with secondary resource recovery. At present, LFM remains as an emerging concept with a few pilot-scale project implementations, which presents challenges when assessing its economic performance. These challenges include large knowledge deficits about the individual processes along the LFM process chain, lack of know-how in terms of project implementation and economic drivers, and limited applicability of results to specific case studies. Based on how these challenges were addressed, this thesis aims to analyze the usefulness and validity of different economic assessments of LFM towards the provision of better support for decision-making and in-depth learning for the development of cost-efficient projects. Different studies were analyzed including the previous studies through a systematic literature review and the factor-based method that is developed in this thesis. Four categories of economic assessment approaches were derived in terms of the study object that is about either an individual LFM project (case-study specific) or multiple LFM projects in a region (generic); and in terms of the extent of analysis that is about either the identification of the net economic potential (decision-oriented) or extended towards an in-depth learning of what builds up such result (learning-oriented). Across the different approaches, most of the previous studies have questionable usefulness and validity. The unaddressed parametric uncertainties exclude the influence of using inherently uncertain input data due to large knowledge deficits. While the narrowly accounted scenario uncertainties limits the fact that LFM can be done in various ways and settings in terms of site selection, project set-up and regulatory and market conditions. In essence, these uncertainties propagate from case-study specific to generic study object. From decision-oriented to learning-oriented studies, the identification of what builds up the result are unsystematically determined that raises issues on their subsequent recommendations for improvement based on superficially derived economic drivers. The factor-based method, with exploratory scenario development and global sensitivity analysis, is presented as an approach to performing generic and learning-oriented studies. As for general recommendations, applied research is needed to aid large knowledge deficits, methodological rigor is needed to account for uncertainties and systematically identify economic drivers, and learningoriented assessment is needed to facilitate future development of LFM. This thesis highlights the important role of economic assessments, which is not only limited for the assessment of economic potential but also for learning and guiding the development of emerging concepts such as LFM.
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| 7. |
- Esguerra, John Laurence, 1991-, et al.
(författare)
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Is enhanced landfill mining profitable?
- 2018
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Ingår i: ISWA 2018 Book of Proceedings. ; , s. 240-245
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The shift from linear to circular economy has steered the change in perception about landfills. From final to temporary waste storage, landfills are considered as technospheric stocks of resources that can be recovered through innovative technologies in the concept of enhanced landfill mining (ELFM). At present, most ELFM projects are in pilot-scale and it remains as a proof of concept. Economic feasibility is one of the primary considerations that must be satisfied prior to its full-scale realization. Several economic assessments were conducted in recent years but there is no systematic synthesis of these studies to date. The aim of this review is to compile various empirical insights of previous economic assessments of ELFM in relation to the employed methodological choices. With pre-defined exclusion criteria, 15 studies were selected in this review. For the empirical part, the identified main economic drivers for costs are separation and sorting, thermal treatment and transportation, while for benefits are material sales, recovered land and energy sales. In more than half of the studies, the costs exceeded the benefits concluding that ELFM is not profitable. The few potentially profitable cases mainly depend on varying the system conditions defined by market prices and regulations. These require changes that are more radical, if not impossible. For the method part, costs and benefits are accounted at different levels of aggregation, scope and scale—that is from process to sub-process level, from private to societal economics, and from laboratory to pilot scale, respectively. As most studies are based on pilot scale, if not purely conceptual, data estimation mainly depends on extrapolation from these pilot projects or on direct adoption of secondary data. In spite of the expected uncertainties in model, scenario and parameter, less than half of the studies employed sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. With it being neglected, their results can be considered to have a weak reliability for practical use in a full-scale ELFM project implementation. A need for systematic framework for early-stage assessment is highlighted to capture both stochastic and epistemic uncertainties. Process and system upscaling with exploratory scenario development, and participatory data collection in ranges rather than in absolute terms are some of the suggested approaches to generate results with a certain level of confidence. In this way, the future economic assessments of ELFM can veer away from simple profitability assessments. Instead, it focuses on knowledge development despite the limited information that is inherent to emerging concepts. Most importantly, it provides reliable information that can be used as a decision-support for various stakeholders such as project managers, technology developers, and policy makers towards the advancement of ELFM.
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| 8. |
- Gunaratne, Tharaka, 1982-
(författare)
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Can we go circular? : On the multifaceted challenges of facilitating shredder fines valorisation in the Swedish context
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In concomitance with the growing developments around the circular economy concept in the region, the resource recovery and recycling of industrial production residues is increasingly being envisaged in the European Union and its member states. The role of the recycling industry has become ever important in this context. The shredding industry is based on shredding discarded products such as end-of-life vehicles, and municipal white goods, and subsequent retrieval of (primarily) metals. Shredder fines (or fines) is a heterogeneous fine-granular production residue of this industry, which is currently disposed of. Shredder fines presents, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future, several challenges that need to be addressed. It creates a disposal problem given the shrinking landfill availability and incurs handling costs to the shredding industry. Furthermore, it reduces our resources efficiency in general.This thesis aims to contribute knowledge on the challenges of facilitating the valorisation of shredder fines in the context of Sweden. In doing so, the current situation concerning fines and its management was investigated by addressing the research questions; 1) What is the resource potential of fines generated at the studied shredding plant, and 2) Why is the current disposal-oriented management of shredder fines sustained in Sweden. There, a systems perspective was employed, where the research questions were addressed on the material, actor, and institution levels, based on three scientific articles, which are appended.The studied material carries a certain amount of potentially recoverable resources, nevertheless shows a significant need for upgrading pertaining to the user requirements and regulatory standards of different recovery applications. The full recovery of fines requires integrated processes that could simultaneously harness these resource opportunities and resolve the material constraints. When it comes to the current practice of managing fines in Sweden, the utilisation in landfill covering offers the shredding companies a secure outlet for the material, given it is a well-established practice that has evolved over decades of operations and there is still a significant demand for landfill cover materials. Additionally, it provides shredding companies with a legislatively-compliant low-cost disposal option for managing fines. On the other hand, the complex materiality, lack of marketability of secondary raw materials (SRMs), and unfavourable governmental regulation of waste recovery create strategic disincentives for shredding companies in opting for fines valorisation.Fines valorisation calls for change in the well-established current practice of utilising the material in landfill covering. Thus, drastic policy measures such as phasing out landfilling and mandating resource recovery and recycling of fines are required to remove the incentives for fines disposal and compel the shredding industry to seek valorisation alternatives for its management. In order to ensure long-term sustenance, applications based on fines valorisation need favourable and more predictable circumstances and settings on different societal levels. There, secure outlets for potential fines-derived SRMs is one of the essential elements. Governmental interventions to create demand and alleviate valorisation investments via market and financial instruments play a significant role in that regard. The other primary requirement to facilitate fines valorisation in the long term is to set clear market and regulatory playing rules. Established supply and demand structures would enable clear pricing mechanisms for fines-derived SRMs and accurate economic assessments of fines valorisation, thus reducing the investment risk for shredding companies. On the other hand, clear regulatory standards and favourable regulatory practices would reduce the uncertainty of the realisation of valorisation applications and gain trust among actors.
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| 9. |
- Gunaratne, Tharaka, et al.
(författare)
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Guiding future research on the valorisation of shredder fine residues : A review of four decades of research
- 2020
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Ingår i: Detritus. - Padova, Italy : CISA Publisher. - 2611-4135. ; 09, s. 150-164
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Millions of tonnes of shredder fines are generated and disposed of globally, despite compelling reasons for its recovery. The absence of a review of previous literature, however, makes it difficult to understand the underlying reasons for this. Thus, this study attempts to investigate and assess what, to what extent, and in what ways shredder fines have been addressed in previous research. In doing so, guidelines are drawn for future research to facilitate the valorisation (upgrading and recovery) of shredder fines. Previous research concerning shredder fines was identified with respect to three main research topics. The material characterisation studies are predominantly confined to the occurrence of metals due to their recovery and contamination potential. The process development studies have often undertaken narrowly conceived objectives of addressing one resource opportunity or contamination problem at a time. Consequently, the full recovery (the retrieval of valuable resources and the bulk-utilisation as substitute material) potential of shredder fines has been largely overlooked. The main limitation of policy and regulation studies is the absence of in-depth knowledge on the implications of governmental waste- and resource-policies (macro-level) on actors’ incentives and capacities (micro-level) for fines valorisation, which is necessary to understand the marketability of fines-derived resources. Undertaking a systems perspective is the key to recognising not only the different aspects within the individual research topics but also the inter-relations between them. It also facilitates the internalisation of the inter-relations into topical research.
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| 10. |
- Gunaratne, Tharaka, 1982-
(författare)
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Valorisation of heterogeneous industrial residues towards a circular economy : A systems-oriented investigation on how to facilitate shredder fines valorisation in the Swedish context
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the context of circular economy in the European region the role of the recycling industry has become ever important. Shredder fines (or fines) is a heterogeneous fine-granular production residue of the shredding industry, and is currently disposed of. Shredder fines presents a disposal problem and incurs handling costs to the shredding industry. More importantly, its disposal reduces the resources efficiency of our society. This thesis aims to contribute systems-oriented knowledge to facilitate the valorisation of shredder fines in the Swedish context. In doing so, it contributes to two knowledge. Knowledge area one portrays the current picture concerning fines management in terms of the underlying factors of the current practice of fines management and the market prospects for secondary construction aggregates. Knowledge area two showcases the potential approach to initiate process development in terms of assessments of the resource potential of fines and the environmental impact of fines-valorisation. The findings of knowledge area one show that the studied shredding company is more inclined towards continuing on the current disposal-oriented management of fines. That is because of both incentives for utilising fines as landfill cover materials and disincentives for valorising fines, created by various policy, market, and organisational factors. On the other hand, a significant need exists to improve the prospects of secondary aggregates in the construction aggregates market. Currently, the market is chiefly characterised by processes and underlying structures that sustain dominant primary aggregates utilisation, whereas secondary aggregates utilisation is situational and driven by different supply chain actors due to different individual reasons.The findings of knowledge area two show that process development for fines valorisation has several technical and environmental challenges. The resource potential assessment of the fines shows that the initial technical feasibility of fines valorisation is considerable, however different resource recovery strategies would require different levels of processes for upgrading and resource recovery. The ex-ante life cycle assessment of fines valorisation shows that potential fines valorisation is environmentally more promising compared to landfill-related disposal, however, different resource recovery strategies would create different levels of environmental impacts and present different needs for improvements.Facilitating fines valorisation calls for different measures on the institution and actor levels. Drastic policy measures are required to remove the incentives for the disposal of the material and compel shredding companies to seek valorisation alternatives. In order to ensure long-term sustenance of fines valorisation, fines-derived secondary raw materials need secure outlets and clear market and regulatory playing rules for their generation and application. Additionally, environmentally feasible and cost effective upgrading and resource recovery processes have to be developed.The origin of circular economy is grounded in restoring the environmental balance and reducing the throughput of natural resources in anthropogenic systems. Nevertheless, the current conceptualisation of circular economy is predominantly focusing on the economic progress, which somewhat promotes “business as usual”. This thesis attempts to reinstate the original resource conservation idea of circular economy in relation to heterogeneous industrial residue valorisation.
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