Experiences of three landfill mining projects in the baltic sea area: with focus on machinery for material recovery

Abstract

There exists huge number of old landfills and dumps located close to the rivers and lakes in the Baltic Sea Region as well as the Baltic Sea itself. The main risks from landfills are water pollution from leachate and global greenhouse effect from methane emissions as well as effects on human health. Landfill excavation and land remediation are potential methods for treatment of waste from old landfills. Excavation of a landfill might be interesting in order to recover valuable materials from the landfill, save cost for final coverage of the landfill and aftercare. The research project “Closing the Life Cycle of Landfills - Landfill Mining in the Baltic Sea Region for future” sponsored by the Swedish Institute includes studies of excavations of landfills in Baltic Sea Region. It is well known, that landfills contribute to a major extent in the dumping of hazardous substances and the reclamation of such landfills is essential for the sustainable development of the environment. Through the approach used solutions for the remediation/prevention of water and soil pollution and for land reclamation is shown. The resource recovery is one of the beneficial areas of generating revenue for the success of excavation projects. In present paper three landfill mining excavations are presented and in particular with focus on the machinery used. The full-scale excavation is presented from the Estonian Kudjape Landfill, Högbytorp landfill and Vika landfill in Sweden.