title: A cost-benefit analysis of landfill mining and material recycling in China.
abstract: Landfill mining is an environmentally-friendly technology that combines the concepts of material recycling and sustainable waste management, and it has received a great deal of worldwide attention because of its significant environmental and economic potential in material recycling, energy recovery, land reclamation and pollution prevention. This work applied a cost-benefit analysis model for assessing the economic feasibility, which is important for promoting landfill mining. The model includes eight indicators of costs and nine indicators of benefits. Four landfill mining scenarios were designed and analyzed based on field data. The economic feasibility of landfill mining was then evaluated by the indicator of net present value (NPV). According to our case study of a typical old landfill mining project in China (Yingchun landfill), rental of excavation and hauling equipment, waste processing and material transportation were the top three costs of landfill mining, accounting for 88.2% of the total cost, and the average cost per unit of stored waste was 12.7USDton(-1). The top three benefits of landfill mining were electricity generation by incineration, land reclamation and recycling soil-like materials. The NPV analysis of the four different scenarios indicated that the Yingchun landfill mining project could obtain a net positive benefit varying from 1.92 million USD to 16.63 million USD. However, the NPV was sensitive to the mode of land reuse, the availability of energy recovery facilities and the possibility of obtaining financial support by avoiding post-closure care.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Region Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, China. Electronic address: cbzhou@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Chuanbin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Region Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Region Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Junsong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Region Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Aixin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Region Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hanwen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D008906:Mining / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D059027:Recycling / Q000191:economics*; D064091:Waste Disposal Facilities / Q000191:economics*; D018505:Waste Management / Q000191:economics
keywords: Cost-benefit analysis (CBA); Economic feasibility; Landfill mining; Material recycling; Net present value (NPV)