A novel approach for environmental evaluation of landfill mining

Frändegård, Per; Krook, Joakim; Svensson, Niclas; Eklund, Mats

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.05.045

Cited by 89 publications

(67 citation statements)

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“…In recent years landfill mining has gained increased attention, both from scientists and practitioners [4]. It can be predicted that landfill mining will be an important issue also in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Landfill Mining in Latvia

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2017

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A lot of efforts and scientific research have been done in the field of material and energy recovery from waste, offering source separation and recycling of waste, landfill gas extraction from landfill cells, composting of biodegradable waste etc. Nevertheless, disposal of waste in dumpsites and landfills has been and still is the most widely used waste management method throughout the world, including Latvia. In recent years a concept of a landfill as an endpoint of waste is slowly changing to a concept of landfill as a place for temporary storage of waste. According to Hogland et.al., there are up to 500 000 landfills and dumpsites in Europe, that contain valuable resources which can be recovered and used in production of new products. Since implementation of the Council Directive of April 26, 1999 on the landfill of waste, more than 500 dumpsites have been closed and 11 new sanitary landfills have started operating in Latvia. Largest part of the dumpsites are remediated, however the rest are still waiting for remediation projects. During the last twenty years practical examples of waste excavation from dumpsites and landfills have been carried out, showing that resource recovery from deposited waste can be a solution, especially in the cases of high land value or scarcity of covering materials. The aim of the paper is to assess the existing status of nonremediated dumpsites to identify the problems and challenges potentially faced for conducting the landfill mining projects in Latvia, as well as to show the existing practice on landfill mining in our country. The results of the paper show that some of the most challenging problems are issues of the ownership of dumpsites, the unknown content of the waste deposited, the lack of appropriate treatment technologies for excavated waste, as well as the lack of legislative acts concerning landfill mining and land use after cleaning of dump site. The case of excavating dumpsite 'Kekava' near Riga city is analyzed in the paper.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More than 50 landfill mining projects have been implemented since 1990's around the world [4]. One landfill mining project has also been realized in Latvia and can be revised as the starting point to develop such activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landfill Mining in Latvia

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“…More than 60 projects have been carried out in the past two decades (Frandegard et al, 2013;Ortner et al, 2014), the majority of which have focused on solving local concerns, such as increasing landfill lifespan, saving land resources, recovering valuable recyclable materials, remediation or other traditional waste management issues (Armisheva et al, 2013;Mali et al, 2011;Paap et al, 2010). Landfill mining is potentially advantageous for countries with large populations where land is not available for new landfill sites.…”

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confidence: 99%

Editorial

Zhang¹

2014

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Waste and R

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comprises four papers focusing on assessment, design, introduction or improvement of waste management in various aspects and challenges. The themes cover landfill mining, determining criteria for environmental performance, logistics and constraints. These topics should be of interest to those from research institutes, universities, governments and industry.Landfill mining has, for many years, been put forward as a concept but has recently been attracting more and more attention. More than 60 projects have been carried out in the past two decades (Frandegard et al., 2013;Ortner et al., 2014), the majority of which have focused on solving local concerns, such as increasing landfill lifespan, saving land resources, recovering valuable recyclable materials, remediation or other traditional waste management issues (Armisheva et al., 2013;Mali et al., 2011;Paap et al., 2010). Landfill mining is potentially advantageous for countries with large populations where land is not available for new landfill sites. In the current issue, Ortner et al. (2014) review previous achievements in landfill mining, focusing on the objectives, trends and findings of 60 landfill mining projects conducted during the period 1953 to 2009. This work shows that the focus has shifted from organic and mineral fractions for compost or cover material to the extraction of more valuable fractions such as metals. The major challenges are the integration of long-term environmental impacts, the quantification of socio-economic effects and the availability of reliable and suitable data sources. Attention should be focused on technological innovations and the development of standardised frameworks for evaluating performance so as to facilitate the implementation of resource recovery from landfills.The lack of information on waste management in low-income countries, especially those in Africa, is a concern. Expertise and the use of appropriate technologies for solid waste collection, recovery and disposal in developing countries is still insufficient. In addition, the constraints emerging from the application of technologies to improve solid waste management systems in developing countries are seldom discussed. Di Bella and Vaccari (2014) investigate five main cities in Somaliland and analyse the difficulties and challenges of waste collection, recycling and disposal. They found the practical constraints in the field include a lack of machinery and technology, problems in the operation of facilities, lack of knowledge and awareness, difficulties in collaboration with local stakeholders, a lack of supervision, issues of land ownership and the lack of specific policies.Environmental performance assessment is an important consideration in environmental management. Environmental performance assessment could help improve performance by providing information about achievement in environmental policies, objectives, targets, actions and responsibilities within an organisation. It can also measure, analyse and assess organisational environmental performance. Envir...

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“…globally the amount of copper in waste deposits is estimated to be comparable to the current in-use stock (Kapur, 2006). In some regions with well-developed district heating systems, such as Sweden, the amount of combustibles in municipal landfills alone may cover the demand for waste fuels for decades (Frändegård et al, 2013).…”

Section: Landfills As Untapped Resource Reservoirsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Systems analysis tools are increasingly used to evaluate the resource, environmental or economic potentials of full-scale landfill mining operations. These studies have shown that landfill mining can potentially lead to environmental and social benefits, but has difficulties in making a positive turnover (Frändegård et al, 2013;Van Passel et al, 2013;Marella & Raga, 2014;Jain et al, 2014;Herman et al, 2014;Damigos et al, 2015;Danthurebandara et al, 2015;Frändegård et al, 2015;Winterstetter et al, 2015).…”

Section: Landfill Mining As a Social-technical Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Landfill Mining : Institutional challenges for the implementation of resource extraction from waste deposits

Johansson¹

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Landfill mining is a term to describe the emerging field of exploring and extracting disposed material. The recovery of deposited resources may increase the flows of secondary resources and thereby replace a significant share of the primary production. The extraction of deposited materials may also be integrated with remediation and after care measures, to handle the many problematic landfills. Such unconventional recycling practices are, however, currently limited. The research in the field has mainly focused on technical evaluations of sorting efficiency, economic feasibility, and resource and environmental potential. Other issues of concern to institutions, markets, policy and conflict of interest have received considerably less attention.This thesis consists of five scientific articles that have been synthesized. The overall aim of the thesis is to examine the institutional conditions for the implementation and emergence of landfill mining. This is addressed by three research questions. The first question concerns how policies come into play in a landfill mining operation and its consequences for the implementation and emergence of landfill mining. The second question is devoted to understanding these policies and why they look the way they do. Based on how policy influences landfill mining operators and how these policies can be understood, the third question seeks to formulate some overall institutional challenges for the emergence of landfill mining, and how the authorities' capacity to address the institutional challenges may increase.The result shows that current policy makes it difficult for landfill mining operators to find a market outlet for the exhumed material, which means that landfill mining may result in a waste disposal problem. Regulations also restrict accessibility to the material in landfills. Therefore, it has generally been municipal landfill owners that perform landfill mining operations, which directs learning processes towards solving landfill problems rather than resource recovery. Landfill mining is not, however, necessarily to be perceived as a recycling activity. It could also be understood as a remediation or mining activity. This would result in more favorable institutional conditions for landfill mining in terms of better access to the market and the material in the landfill.The regulatory framework surrounding landfills is based on a perception of landfills as a source of pollution, a problem that should be avoided, capped and closed. Extracting resources from landfills, challenges this perception and therefore results in a mismatch with the regulatory framework. On the other hand, the material in mines is typically regarded in the formal institutions as a positive occurrence. Mining activities are regarded as the backbone of the Swedish economy and therefore receive various forms of political support. This favorable regulatory framework is not available for secondary resource production. Based on the identified institutional conditions, institutional challenges are id...

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A novel approach for environmental evaluation of landfill mining

Cited by 89 publications

References 22 publications

Landfill Mining in Latvia

Landfill Mining in Latvia

Editorial

Landfill Mining : Institutional challenges for the implementation of resource extraction from waste deposits

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