title: Material flow-based economic assessment of landfill mining processes.
abstract: This paper provides an economic assessment of alternative processes for landfill mining compared to landfill aftercare with the goal of assisting landfill operators with the decision to choose between the two alternatives. A material flow-based assessment approach is developed and applied to a landfill in Germany. In addition to landfill aftercare, six alternative landfill mining processes are considered. These range from simple approaches where most of the material is incinerated or landfilled again to sophisticated technology combinations that allow for recovering highly differentiated products such as metals, plastics, glass, recycling sand, and gravel. For the alternatives, the net present value of all relevant cash flows associated with plant installation and operation, supply, recycling, and disposal of material flows, recovery of land and landfill airspace, as well as landfill closure and aftercare is computed with an extensive sensitivity analyses. The economic performance of landfill mining processes is found to be significantly influenced by the prices of thermal treatment (waste incineration as well as refuse-derived fuels incineration plant) and recovered land or airspace. The results indicate that the simple process alternatives have the highest economic potential, which contradicts the aim of recovering most of the resources.
authors.affiliation: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Automotive Management and Industrial Production, Chair of Production and Logistics, Mühlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany. Electronic address: k.kieckhaefer@tu-braunschweig.de.
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kieckhäfer
authors.affiliation: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Automotive Management and Industrial Production, Chair of Production and Logistics, Mühlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Breitenstein
authors.affiliation: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Automotive Management and Industrial Production, Chair of Production and Logistics, Mühlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Spengler
mesh_terms: D005858:Germany; D008906:Mining / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D059027:Recycling / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D064091:Waste Disposal Facilities / Q000191:economics*
keywords: Case study; Economic assessment; Enhanced landfill mining; Process alternatives; Resource recovery