Landfill mining

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As Landfill Mining (landfill mining ', partly Landfill mining and reclamation ), German and waste mining , landfill recycling , non-specific landfill remediation and similar to that raw materials from landfills designated.

Basics

Extraction of raw materials from old sites can be done when a landfill is dismantled by recovering materials. If the extraction of the valuable materials is sufficiently lucrative, the mining can also stand as a purpose in itself. Open pit mining is usually chosen as the mining method . Landfill mining can be described as a sub-area of urban mining .

The beginnings of the idea of ​​recycling the materials from landfills go back to the middle of the 20th century. In 1953, a landfill was reconditioned for the first time in Israel. The first landfill relocation in Europe took place from 1990 in Vienna ( Spitzau landfill ).

A 2011 study of demolitions in Austria, Germany and Switzerland showed that at the time, groundwater protection was the focus of a third (33%) of the projects, a fifth (20%) the creation of landfill volumes, and a seventh (13%) of the Purpose of recovering valuable materials.

Searched raw materials

The aim is to recycle valuable materials in the waste, so it is a matter of recycling instead of disposing of waste, for which landfill sites are usually used (see waste disposal ). Examples of raw materials that may be extracted in this way are copper or rare earths found in electronic items, as well as iron , aluminum and brass . Waste from landfills can also be used in cement kilns because of its calorific value .

Problems are the search for landfills that contain the recyclable materials in sufficiently large quantities, and the high costs required, since z. B. toxic chemicals may also be present.

With the beginning global scarcity of building sand and the increased direct reprocessing of building rubble or removal in traffic construction for reprocessing, landfill mining is even starting to become interesting for construction waste landfills.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peggy Hiemann, Horst Görg: Landfill Mining - Motivation and Techniques of Landfill Dismantling . In: Symposium The Safe Landfill - Securing landfills and contaminated sites with plastics , 2013 (conference contribution)
  2. ↑ a b c Antonia Bernhard, Manfred Domenig, Hubert Reisinger, Birgit Walter, Thomas Weißenbach: Landfill dismantling: economic efficiency, resource potential and climate relevance. Report REP-0378, Federal Environment Agency, Vienna 2011, summary , p. 9 ( full article pdf , bmnt.gv.at).
  3. ^ Waste mining. In: GEO. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b Waste becomes gold. In: NZZ. January 23, 2011, accessed August 12, 2018 .