Holistic assessment of a landfill mining pilot project in Austria: Methodology and application

Abstract

Basic technical and economic examinations of Austrian mass waste landfills, concerning the recovery of secondary raw materials, have been carried out by the 'LAMIS - Landfill Mining Austria' pilot project for the first time in Austria. A main focus of the research - the subject of this article - was the first devotion of a pilot landfill to an integrated ecological and economic assessment so that its feasibility could be verified before a landfill mining project commenced. A Styrian mass waste landfill had been chosen for this purpose that had been put into operation in 1979 and received mechanically-biologically pre-treated municipal waste till 2012. The whole assessment procedure was divided into preliminary and main assessment phases to evaluate the general suitability of a landfill mining project with little financial and human resource expense. A portfolio chart, based on a questionnaire, was created for the preliminary assessment that, as a result, has provided a recommendation for subsequent investigation - the main assessment phase. In this case, specific economic criteria were assessed by net present value calculation, while ecological or socio-economic criteria were rated by utility analysis, transferring the result into a utility-net present value chart. In the case of the examined pilot landfill, assessing the landfill mining project produced a higher utility but a lower net present value than a landfill leaving-in for aftercare. Since no clearly preferable scenario could be identified this way, a cost-revenue analysis was carried out in addition that determined a dimensionless ratio: the 'utility - net present value quotient' of both scenarios. Comparing this quotient showed unmistakably that in the overall assessment, 'leaving the landfill in aftercare' was preferable to a 'landfill mining project' in that specific case.

Developing Stakeholder Archetypes for Enhanced Landfill Mining

“…Additionally, time effects should be considered when building investment and cost models. While discounting is usually applied when assessing a project's net present value (NPV) (Hermann et al, 2016a;Van Passel et al, 2013;Winterstetter et al, 2018), delays through social resistance or permitting processes are not considered.…”

“…Its economic performance, on the other hand, is still unclear. High investment and processing costs hinder ELFM implementation, despite environmental gains (Hermann et al, 2016a;Kieckhäfer et al, 2017). Societal factors are rarely considered in ELFM research or generalized to an extent where impacts an effects become entangled, often through monetization, making it difficult to draw conclusions (Damigos et al, 2015;.…”

Landfill mining: Developing a comprehensive assessment method

“…The present examinations, made within the scope of the LAMIS research project, have supplied the basis on which all required steps, from mining, processing and sorting, to supplying a marketable material or product by the landfill operator, have been established to define the spatial system boundary. Hermann et al (2015b) described this procedure in detail. The temporal system boundary also affects the results of a comprehensive assessment.…”

“…This method helps landfill operators simulate LFM on their landfill in advance, and with little effort in money and staff, to decide for or against performing LFM. All statements and explanations in this article are based on scientific-practical preliminary information published in Hermann et al (2014aHermann et al ( , 2014bHermann et al ( , 2015aHermann et al ( , 2015b and Wolfsberger et al (2014Wolfsberger et al ( , 2015aWolfsberger et al ( , 2015b.…”

Assessing the Economic Potential of Landfill Mining: Review and Recommendations

“…This gives a hint on the compelling challenges for realizing such projects. Beyond the technological challenges, the implementation of LFM is also subject to the complex web of political, organizational, environmental, and economic considerations (Hermann et al, 2016;Johansson et al, 2017;Krook et al, 2015;Van Der Zee et al, 2004), which is common to emerging concepts (Hekkert et al, 2007). In Europe, although LFM failed to be integrated into the recent amendment of the EU Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC), its implementation is neither prohibited (European Parliament, 2018).…”