NEW-MINE — EU Training Network for Resource Recovery through Enhanced Landfill Mining

Results in brief

EU Training Network for Resource Recovery through Enhanced Landfill Mining

Europe has somewhere between 150,000 and 500,000 landfill sites, with an estimated 90% of them being “non-sanitary” landfills, predating the EU Landfill Directive of 1999. These older landfills tend to be filled with municipal solid waste and often lack any environmental protection technology. In order to avoid future environmental and health problems, many of these landfills will soon require expensive remediation measures. This situation might appear bleak, but it does present us with an exciting opportunity for a combined resource-recovery and remediation strategy, which will drastically reduce future remediation costs, reclaim valuable land, while at the same time unlocking valuable resources. However, the widespread adoption of Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) in the EU, as envisaged by NEW-MINE, urgently requires skilled scientists, engineers, economists and policy makers who can develop cost-effective, environmentally friendly ELFM practices and regulatory frameworks. All this demands a European commitment to concerted, inter- and transdisciplinary research and innovation. NEW-MINE trains 15 early-stage researchers (ESRs) in all aspects of landfill mining, in terms of both technological innovation and multi-criteria assessments. The technological innovation follows a value-chain approach, from advanced landfill exploration, mechanical processing, hybrid plasma/solar thermochemical conversion and upcycling, while the multi-criteria assessment methods allow to compare combined resource-recovery/remediation ELFM methods with the “Do-Nothing”, “Classic remediation” and “Classic landfill mining with (co-)incineration” scenarios (See Figure 1). By training the ESRs in scientific, technical and soft skills, they become highly sought-after scientists and engineers for the rapidly emerging landfill-mining and broader raw-materials industries of Europe. The overall project flow is shown in Figure 2. The 15 ESR topics are linked through an ELFM flowsheet, in which ESR1 is performing geophysical exploration of landfills, which are subsequently excavated and treated by different mechanical separation processes (ESR2-3-4) to produce different fractions, which are subsequently processed to recover materials (e.g. metals, building sand) and further processed to produce a refuse derived fuel (RDF) for work package 2. Work package 2 studies the conversion of the RDF to syngas, metals and slags and ashes (ESR5-9), while WP3 studies the metal/slag-ash separation and the further treatment of slags/ashes to produce inorganic polymers and/or glass ceramics (ESR10-12). Work package 4 performs an integrated assessment of the process and of ELFM as a whole (ESR13-15).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Europe has somewhere between 150,000 and 500,000 landfill sites, with an estimated 90% of them being “non-sanitary”landfills, predating the EU Landfill Directive of 1999. These older landfills tend to be filled with municipal solid wasteand often lack any environmental protection technology. In order to avoid future environmental and health problems,many of these landfills will soon require expensive remediation measures. This situation might appear bleak, but it doespresent us with an exciting opportunity for a combined resource-recovery and remediation strategy, which will drasticallyreduce future remediation costs, reclaim valuable land, while at the same time unlocking billions of tonnes of valuableresources contained within these landfills. However, the widespread adoption of Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM)in the EU, as envisaged by NEW-MINE, urgently requires skilled scientists, engineers, economists and policy makerswho can develop cost-effective, environmentally friendly ELFM practices and regulatory frameworks. All this demandsa European commitment to concerted, inter- and transdisciplinary research and innovation. The NEW-MINE projecttrains 15 early-stage researchers (ESRs) in all the aspects of landfill mining, in terms of both technological innovationand multi-criteria assessments for ELFM. The technological innovation follows a value-chain approach, from advancedlandfill exploration, mechanical processing, plasma/solar/hybrid thermochemical conversion and upcycling, while themulti-criteria assessment methods allow the ESRs to compare combined resource-recovery/remediation ELFM methodswith the “Do-Nothing”, “Classic remediation” and “Classic landfill mining with (co-)incineration” scenarios. By training the ESRs in scientific, technical and a range of soft skills, all based on a collaboration involving EU-leading institutes, they become highly sought-after scientists and engineers for the rapidly emerging ELFM and recycling industries.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · LeuvenCoordinatorBelgium
.A.S.A. Abfallservice Halbenrain GmbH & Co Nfg KG · HimbergAustria
BERGISCHER ABFALLWIRTSCHAFTSVERBAND · ENGELSKIRCHENGermany
CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY · Cranfield - BedfordshireUnited Kingdom
EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH · ZuerichSwitzerland
HEIDELBERG MATERIALS ITALIA CEMENTI SPA · Peschiera BorromeoItaly
JM RECYCLING NV · HASSELTBelgium
KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN · StockholmSweden
LINKOPINGS UNIVERSITET · LinkopingSweden
MONTANUNIVERSITAET LEOBEN · LeobenAustria
RENEWI VALORISATION & QUARRY · LOMMELBelgium
RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN · AachenGermany
SCANARC PLASMA TECHNOLOGIES AB · HoforsSweden
Stadler Anlagenbau GmbH · AltshausenGermany
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA · PadovaItaly
UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN · AntwerpenBelgium
UNIVERSITEIT GENT · GentBelgium

NEW-MINE · EU Training Network for Resource Recovery through Enhanced Landfill Mining

Results in brief

EU Training Network for Resource Recovery through Enhanced Landfill Mining

Project objective

Participants

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