(ISB) LANDFILL MINING

We all wish for a world without landfills. And in the past few years, we’ve all made a big effort to reduce the amount of waste that ends up there. In the UK in 2010, for example, we sent 12.9 million tonnes of municipal waste to landfill. By 2020, that had fallen to 6.1 million.

That’s good news, but not every country is reducing its landfill impact – in countries where there is large population growth, economic development and ignorance of environmental issues, for example, landfill sites are growing, not shrinking.

Depending on the way landfills are managed, this forgotten waste leaks hazardous substances into the atmosphere and into waterways. They emit a significant amount of methane, take up a lot of land space and pose a danger to the health of those living and working near them.

So we are still creating landfill problems. But in our view, the landfill issue is not just about how much new waste gets sent to landfill; it’s about what’s already there, and whether we can use it – and that’s why we’re talking about landfill mining.

What is landfill mining?

Landfill mining is the process of extracting materials from landfill that can be reused, recycled, refined and resold. This puts more ‘existing’ material back into the economy, creates valuable secondary markets and reduces the amount of waste lying dormant at landfill sites.

At its most basic, landfill mining is about sifting through existing waste to extract useful and potentially valuable materials, including:

Glass
Various metals
Plastics
Textiles
Brick, stone and cement

There will be other materials in landfill that could be successfully mined, refined and resold. The challenge for waste management companies who are considering this as a potential revenue stream is to mine safely, efficiently and profitably. More of this article (ISB Global) - link - more like this (IMECHE) - link - Chris Williams - LinkedIn - link - more like this (landfill) - link - picture (Morecambe Metals) - link - more like this (mining) - link