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Grøn Dyst 2016

813 160 Life Cycle Assessment of Mining an Old Danish Landfill Obianuju Udodi DTU Environment, Technical university of Denmark Most studies on landfill mining have focused on land reclamation and landfill remediation1. There are limited studies that have evaluated landfill mining combined with resource recovery, most of them being experimental studies or projects with little emphasis on resource extraction1. Landfill mining simple means the excavation, processing, treatment and or recycling of deposited materials2. With a growing interest in environmental concerns around the globe, this project presents an LCA of mining an old Danish landfill. The 13years old landfill contained mixed waste. The objective of the research is to weigh if there are any environmental benefit from mining the landfill. EASETECH software was used to run the model. Two scenarios were set up – the Do nothing scenario and recovery of recyclates and combustibles material scenario. The life cycle inventory data is based on a real landfill mining project implemented at AV Miljo and additional experimental data were collected from scientific papers. Within the assumptions made the results show that the recovery of recyclates and combustible material scenario delivers net environmental benefits as opposed to the baseline scenario. The burning of combustible fraction to generate energy and electricity contributed to a savings in climate change impact category while the use of fuel in equipment for excavation yielded a negative impact on acidification and human toxicity impact category. Leachate from the landfill is treated at WWTP Avedore and finally discharged to surface water contributed negatively to human toxicity impact category, as well as the leachate from the bottom ash (which is further used as subbase material). In conclusion, when the landfill is not mined, is does not just have negative environmental impacts but also economic implications. Secondly, the loss of space and environmental impact incurred from constructing and operating a new landfill is to be considered. Reference 1. Frändegård, P., Krook, J., Svensson, N. & Eklund, M. A novel approach for environmental evaluation of land fi ll mining. J. Clean. Prod. 55, 24–34 (2013). 2. Krook, J., Svensson, N. & Eklund, M. Landfill mining: a critical review of two decades of research. Waste Manag. 32, 513–20 (2012). WASTE & RECYCLING POSTER IDEA MASTER THESIS


Grøn Dyst 2016
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