Within the framework of the "EU Training Network for Resource Recovery through Enhanced Landfill Mining -NEW-MINE", around 374 Mg of waste were excavated from a landfill site in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium. Parameters such as bulk density, water content, particle size distribution and material composition of the fine fractions (material <90 mm) were determined and analyzed. The present investigation has the main objective to document and disseminate the findings on the material characterization of the fine fractions obtained in this case study, since such information is of critical relevance for the design of an effective and efficient mechanical processing in (enhanced) landfill mining projects. Additionally, the potential of the fine fractions for material and energy recovery is discussed. The fine fractions in question were obtained through the implementation of a ballistic separation process with simultaneous screening directly after excavation, from which about 77 wt.% of the total amount of processed material in raw state corresponded to the fine fractions. These fractions presented an overall bulk density range of 720-1000 kg/m 3 in raw state and a total water content range of 25-30 wt.%. In dry state, the material showed a more uniform particle size distribution than in raw state, and results confirm that water content has a large impact on the particle size distribution of the fine fractions, as well as on the content of impurities in the material fractions "Combustibles", "Inert", "Total metals" and "Others" and on the presence of agglomerates. Results on the material composition in dry state reveal that amounts of 2.1-19.7 wt.% "Combustibles", 31.1-35.4 wt.% "Inert" and 0.6-1.8 wt.% "Total metals" could be recovered from the fine fractions 90-10 mm, while 37.8-55.6 wt.% "Fine fractions <10 mm" could be processed further in order to increase the recovery amounts of the previous material fractions and produce a substitute material for soil in construction applications.

Neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) grinding slurries are the residual output of grinding as shaping process step in the production process of sintered NdFeB magnets. The treatment of the grinding slurries with the aim of recovering rare earth elements may lead to a reduced demand in primary raw materials like the rare earth elements neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium. In this study, the possibility of recycling the contained rare earth elements, which account for up to 30 wt % in the alloy, through a pyrometallurgical process was investigated. The necessity of a thermal conditioning prior to the pyrometallurgical process is described.

The recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is an important issue of today's society. Mechanical recycling makes more sense from an ecological point of view than chemical PET recycling. However, mechanical recycling still is highly susceptible to defilements. Therefore, intensive pre-treatment is necessary to ensure the mechanical production of high-quality recycled PET. An important step in this process is to separate the PET bottles from their labels/sleeves. For this purpose, a newly developed label remover was studied. In this study, it was found that the machine had a delabelling efficiency of 90 w%. The PET bottles that were not sufficiently delabelled (10 wt.%) on average had a significantly smaller bottle size. This means that a sharp screening step, prior to delabelling, could improve the delabelling efficiency furthermore. Additionally, the applicability of near-infrared sorting technology was tested to find out, whether it can be used for quality control. Tests showed that state-of-the-art technology could differentiate between labelled and delabelled PET bottles, enabling separation of labelled PET bottles from delabelled bottles via sensor-based sorting. Hence, the proportion of contaminated PET bottles could be reduced furthermore with additional processing steps.