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There is no case where it’s economic to mine a landfill where it’s not more economic for the landfill operator to sort recyclable materials from the incoming tr

There is no case where it’s economic to mine a landfill where it’s not more economic for the landfill operator to sort recyclable materials from the incoming trash. Given that private landfill operators don’t generally do that, we can conclude that the raw materials in a landfill actually aren’t so concentrated or easily extractable to be of any use.

owenversteeg 6y ago
While you're correct in a simple short-term scenario, there is one very big hole in that argument: if the composition of the incoming trash changes over time. Which it does. Plenty of things were not recognized as valuable at the time they were thrown away. There's the classic example of low-background steel, but there are more arcane things as well: an old high school teacher of mine bragged that he salvaged a large amount of discarded old wood planks, worth as much as a nice new car! Even common items may help factor in to making recycling old dumps economical (until recent years, an enormous amount of consumer electronics, containing precious metals, were simply tossed in the trash.) One way I could easily see this becoming big fast is from some sort of law enforcing a heavy carbon tax or pollutant tax. Steel production is highly polluting and currently nobody pays the true price of things (including their carbon footprint.) If a government takes one of these steps - which I could totally see happening - then people will definitely consider mining landfills.
01100011 6y ago
That assumes sorting will not become cheaper over time. Technology will progress and the cost of raw materials extracted naturally may rise and make landfill mining more economical than dealing with the current waste stream. Even if the materials were sorted today on the way in, it may not be economical to do anything with them, so storing them in a sorted landfill could make sense.

owenversteeg 6y ago

While you're correct in a simple short-term scenario, there is one very big hole in that argument: if the composition of the incoming trash changes over time. Which it does. Plenty of things were not recognized as valuable at the time they were thrown away. There's the classic example of low-background steel, but there are more arcane things as well: an old high school teacher of mine bragged that he salvaged a large amount of discarded old wood planks, worth as much as a nice new car! Even common items may help factor in to making recycling old dumps economical (until recent years, an enormous amount of consumer electronics, containing precious metals, were simply tossed in the trash.) One way I could easily see this becoming big fast is from some sort of law enforcing a heavy carbon tax or pollutant tax. Steel production is highly polluting and currently nobody pays the true price of things (including their carbon footprint.) If a government takes one of these steps - which I could totally see happening - then people will definitely consider mining landfills.

01100011 6y ago

That assumes sorting will not become cheaper over time. Technology will progress and the cost of raw materials extracted naturally may rise and make landfill mining more economical than dealing with the current waste stream. Even if the materials were sorted today on the way in, it may not be economical to do anything with them, so storing them in a sorted landfill could make sense.