On the way to ‘zero waste’ management: Recovery potential of elements, including rare earth elements, from fine fraction of waste

Burlakovs, Juris; Jani, Yahya; Kriipsalu, Mait; Vincevica-Gaile, Zane; Kaczala, Fábio; Celma, Gunita; Ozola, Ruta; Rozina, Laine; Rudoviča, Vita; Hogland, Marika; Vīksna, Artūrs; Pehme, Kaur-Mikk; Hogland, William; Kļaviņš, Māris

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.102

Cited by 80 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Recycling and recovery, minimization of consumption of the landfilled waste are extremely important; however, striving for 'beyond zero waste' is challenging for today and the future [3]. There are more than half a million dump sites just in Europe, where a plethora of plastic waste is buried and forgotten by the linear economy [4].…”

Section: Introduction: Plastic As a Materials And Wastementioning

confidence: 99%

Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe

et al. 2019

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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.

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Section: Introduction: Plastic As a Materials And Wastementioning

confidence: 99%

Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe

et al. 2019

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“…The literature reveals that the relationship between the circular economy and mining has only been vaguely explored and mostly explored within quite narrow perspectives such as waste utilization [39][40][41] particularly in the context of landfill and/or urban mining [42,43], iron mining and steel production [44,45], coal mining [46], and indium utilization [47]. P-related issues mainly address recovery from sewage in the present cases referred to as sewer or liquid mining [48,49].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Striving Toward a Circular Economy for Phosphorus: The Role of Phosphate Rock Mining

Geißler

Hermann²,

Mew

et al. 2018

Minerals

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As an element, phosphorus (P) is one of a kind. While it is essential for all life on Earth, phosphorus is neither substitutable nor infinite especially in terms of highly concentrated phosphate rock deposits. Society as a whole—and key stakeholders in particular—must build on and extend the idea of a linear system that begins with exploration, continues with extraction and processing, and ends with the application of fertilizers, by applying mechanisms of circularity. The efficient and sustainable utilization of P including intra-generational and intergenerational fairness requires the recognition of its dissipative structure as an important first step. With its Manifesto for a Resource-Efficient Europe, the European Commission acknowledged the inevitability of the transition toward a regenerative Circular Economy (CE). The concept of a CE evolves around the avoidance of losses, which can be found all along the P supply chain in varying degrees of magnitude and leads to total nutrient-use efficiencies as low as 5% to 10%. This makes P a prime target for moving toward a circular economy. While common state-of-the-art work addresses mostly the loop (i.e., production, use, collection, and recycling) itself, we are discussing the current role of raw materials “feeding” the loop with respect to the mining phase. From a resilience perspective, the aim must be to keep every P atom flowing and circulating within our economy for as long as possible. Hereby, every measure needs to be considered under the principle of proportionality in terms of sustainable development. Therefore, changes to the current approach in the form of multidimensional innovation (e.g., products, processes, and structures) must be considered from various perspectives including technological, geological, and economic aspects. The economic framework conditions, in particular, determine the cut-off between valuable product and “waste”. We build our arguments on the “Phosphate Rock Mining–Innovation Nexus” and illustrate potential best-practice examples.

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“…The aplitic component is very rich in lepidolite (< 250 µm), which is accompanied by other major minerals such as albite, montebrasite and quartz. Some muscovite, topaz, cassiterite and columbo-tantalite also occur (Charoy and Noronha, 1999;Ramos, 2007). In both components, secondary phosphates from late alteration processes are also present.…”

Section: Mineralogy Of the Samples From Alvarrões-gonçalomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This idea conducted to the formulation of the "zero waste" concept, proposed by the Zero Waste International Alliance in 2014, having as main goal to promote practices that enhance the creation of sustainable natural cycles, in which wasting material must be converted in a resource for others to use, i.e. to develop products and processes that avoid the volume of waste materials (Sauer and Seuring, 2017;Sverdrup and Ragnarsdottir, 2014;ZWIA, 2015;Arndt et al, 2017;Burlakovs et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Alvarrões-Gonçalo Li project: an example of sustainable lithium mining

et al. 2018

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Across Europe, small scale deposits of critical materials and/or strategic elements, such as W, Li and Sn, are not viable to mine and process using the traditional large scale mining and processing technologies due to their geological characteristics. Project FAME (Flexible And Mobile Economic Processing Technologies, EC Horizon 2020 Grant Agreement No. 641650) was created in order to specifically address the technical and environmental challenges to the sustainable processing of low sulphide ores from pegmatites, greisens and skarns deposits. One of the deposits, Alvarrões-Gonçalo, is a Li pegmatite located at the Gonçalo pegmatite field (Central Portugal) that is being investigated on the scope of the concerned project. Currently, the pegmatites are only being exploited for ceramics, aggregates and ornamental purposes, however, there is exploitation potential for Li 2 O-rich ores. Froth flotation is being tested to produce a lepidolite concentrate. Results showed the feasibility to obtain a Li 2 O grade adequate for the metallurgical production of lithium compounds as Li 2 CO 3 . The lepidolite flotation rejects, normally stored in tailings dumps, are mainly composed by a mixture of feldspars, quartz and nonrecovered lepidolite (though a very low content), which is, by itself, a very interesting raw material for ceramic purposes. Consequently, mining exploitation of lepidolite, as Li 2 O ore, from pegmatite could comply with the standards of "green mining", reaching an almost "zero waste" exploitation, as it can be accomplished in the case of the mineral processing of the Alvarrões-Gonçalo lithium ore. This basic scenario could be improved by applying froth flotation also for feldspars/quartz separation, aiming at obtaining a high content feldspars concentrate (floated) and a quartz product (non-floated): the feldspars concentrate can be used to produce blends with different ratios feldspars/quartz for sanitary ware and tiles and quartz for other uses, such as glasses and "silica flour".

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On the way to ‘zero waste’ management: Recovery potential of elements, including rare earth elements, from fine fraction of waste

Cited by 80 publications

References 52 publications

Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe

Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe

Striving Toward a Circular Economy for Phosphorus: The Role of Phosphate Rock Mining

The Alvarrões-Gonçalo Li project: an example of sustainable lithium mining

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