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

Abstract

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...

Valorisation of heterogeneous industrial residues towards a circular economy : A systems-oriented investigation on how to facilitate shredder fines valorisation in the Swedish context

“…Article IV also finds that the socio-material perspective of the material creates disincentives for fines valorisation due to the perceived material complexity of fines, which is substantiated via one of the key empirical findings of Article II, that is, material characteristics of fines in terms of the distribution of average and variation of chemical and physical composition across incremental size fractions. Even though it is not common in the waste literature and totally lacking in fines research, certain previous studies, for example, landfill mining (Johansson, 2016), have emphasised its significance towards initiating valorisation investments by actors. Such knowledge is particularly helpful in identifying the need for increased societal awareness on the resource potential of fines, and thereby, having market actors and policymakers recognise the significance of its valorisation.…”

“…While having favourable institutional conditions is fundamental to the success of every industry (Wrigley, 1962), specific policy interventions could be particularly beneficial for potential new developments. In particular, cases such as potential fines valorisation do not have apparent direct market advantages for the participating individual actors due to the inferior material quality and low user demand, but only for society due to any environmental benefits (Johansson, 2016). Hence, governmental interventions are likely necessary to drive investments towards knowledge and technology development for upgrading and resource recovery as well as the utilisation of fines-derived SRMs.…”

Global review of human waste-picking and its contribution to poverty alleviation and a circular economy

“…As waste pickers provide the vital and basic service of collecting MSW in places where the formal recycling sector is absent or highly ineffective (Agunwamba 2003), they contribute to turning waste into a resource and therefore contribute to increasing resource efficiency and closing the loop in a circular economy through reuse, recovery and recycling processes (Scarlat and Dallemand 2019). Johansson (2016) indicated that one way to increase recycling would be to focus on metals stocks often neglected in discussions about resource availability and the circular economy, since landfills and dumpsites have a great resource potential. For example, globally the amount of copper metal lost to the environment is estimated to be comparable with current in-use stocks.…”

Developing Stakeholder Archetypes for Enhanced Landfill Mining

“…Van Passel et al 2013;Lederer, Laner, and Fellner 2014), and (v) "the role and responsibilities of institutions and other stakeholders involved in ELFM activ-ities" (e.g. Krook, Svensson, and Eklund 2012;Johansson 2016). While the first theme (i) was chosen to identify the general approach of participants to landfills and ELFM, the second, third and fourth themes (ii-iv) aim at analyzing the perceived sustainability of ELFM.…”