How to evaluate (enhanced) landfill mining : A critical review of recent environmental and economic assessments

Landfill mining has been proclaimed as an alternative strategy to address unwanted impacts of waste deposits. In real-life projects, such excavation and processing of deposited waste has mainly been used to facilitate traditional objectives such as remediation, land reclamation or creation of landfill airspace. A key target of recent landfill mining research is, however, to go beyond this type of local motives and enhance the recovery of materials and energy resources by developing advanced processing technologies. Although such an ambitiousapproach clearly displays a wider societal potential, it also adds complexity to the implementation and assessment of pros and cons of landfill mining.