Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe

Abstract

For decades, significant work has been conducted regarding plastic waste by dealing with rejected materials in waste masses through their accumulation, sorting and recycling. Important political and technical challenges are involved, especially with respect to landfilled waste. Plastic is popular and, notwithstanding decrease policies, it will remain a material widely used in most economic sectors. However, questions of plastic waste recycling in the contemporary world cannot be solved without knowing the material, which can be achieved by careful sampling, analysis and quantification. Plastic is heterogeneous, but usually all plastic waste is jointly handled for recycling and incineration. Separation before processing waste through the analytical approach must be applied. Modern landfill mining and site clean-up projects in contemporary waste management systems require comprehensive material studies ranging from the macro-characterization of waste masses to a more detailed analysis of hazardous constituents and properties from an energy calorific standpoint—where, among other methods, thermogravimetric research coupled with life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic assessment is highly welcomed.

Solutions and Integrated Strategies for the Control and Mitigation of Plastic and Microplastic Pollution

“…Thus, landfills should only be used as a last resort, to accommodate wastes resulting from recycling, production of feedstock, or waste-to-energy. Furthermore, landfill mining is seen as alternative to the re-introduction of landfilled wastes in the circular economy, either by recycling (e.g., metals) or through waste-to-energy (e.g., plastics) [124]. Indeed, the amount of plastics buried in landfills in China could produce 38% of its total annual energy consumption if reclaimed [125].…”

“…Indeed, the amount of plastics buried in landfills in China could produce 38% of its total annual energy consumption if reclaimed [125]. Waste-to-energy could be part of clean-up projects (i.e., of reclaimed landfill plastics) and integrated waste management mainly through implementation of regional gasification facilities, with calorific values evaluated through thermogravimetric analysis [124]. Nonetheless, this technology is still limited by the different thermal behavior of waste, high heterogeneity, moisture and impurities content, as well as the production of ash [124].…”

Expansion of the Waste-Based Commodity Frontier: Insights from Sweden and Brazil

“…Landfill mining is a technique developed in many European countries [37][38][39][40]. In Sweden, however, this technique is not economically realistic today.…”

Case Study on Enhanced Landfill Mining at MSG Landfill in Belgium: Mechanical Processing of Fine Fractions for Material and Energy Recovery

“…plastics, textiles, leather, paper and wood) were expected to be found in the light fractions and, hence, a fraction called "Combustibles", which is marked in purple in Figure 1, was generated with those materials to produce an alternative fuel, which might be suitable for thermal valorization. To this end, thermogravimetry has proven to be a promising method to determine the composition of such materials and study their decomposition in thermo-chemical conversion processes, such as incineration, pyrolysis and gasification, and, thus, can be helpful for selecting the most appropriate option to be employed (Burlakovs et al, 2019). Inert materials (e.g.…”