Material flow-based economic assessment of landfill mining processes

Area of Science:

• Environmental Economics
• Waste Management Engineering
• Circular Economy

Background:

• Landfill mining presents an alternative to traditional landfill aftercare.
• Evaluating economic viability is crucial for implementing landfill mining strategies.
• Resource recovery and land reclamation are key objectives of landfill mining.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an economic assessment of various landfill mining processes compared to landfill aftercare.
• To aid landfill operators in decision-making between landfill mining and aftercare.
• To identify key economic drivers for landfill mining feasibility.

Main Methods:

• Development and application of a material flow-based assessment approach.
• Economic evaluation of six alternative landfill mining processes and landfill aftercare.
• Net present value (NPV) calculation for all relevant cash flows, including sensitivity analyses.

Main Results:

• Economic performance is significantly influenced by thermal treatment prices and recovered land/airspace value.
• Simple landfill mining processes, focusing on incineration or re-landfilling, show the highest economic potential.
• Sophisticated processes recovering differentiated products have lower economic performance in this assessment.

Conclusions:

• The economic viability of landfill mining is highly sensitive to external market factors and process simplicity.
• Current economic incentives may favor less resource-intensive landfill mining approaches.
• Further research is needed to align economic potential with comprehensive resource recovery goals.