Landfill Mining and Reclamation

Basics

• Essentially Strip Mining but of Landfills
• Easier with modern landfills, but can be done with old (even informal) ones.
• In older ones, it can even be of historic value (like a time capsule of sorts, anthropologists, and archeologits do this with old "mounds" with mainly shells and bones of food, but this is a similar modern form)
• Leads to:
  • Recovered Recyclable Materials (Metal, Glass, Plastic, Misc)
  • Recovered Soil/Clay (cover material)
  • Recovered Aggregate Materials
  • Typically large amounts of Methane, Sulfur Gasses, and Leachate, which is toxic, but can be processed into useful products
  • Refuse Derived Fuel (sort of like biomass, but much more unpredictable)
    • This can in turn be made into Syngas and Slag
• Finally the land is returned to it's natural state and/or develped

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on Landfill Mining and Reclamation