Mining landfills.

[arthur boone]

On the matter of mining old landfills, it's a lot easier to make a baby than to resuscitate a dead person. ARBoone

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[Amy Bauman]

Arthur, you are quite right.  Historically.  Not that the costs of babies and resuscitation were *ever* accurate!

 

Most of the resources we've derived (mining and in many other ways) are the 'low hanging fruit' of the mineral world.  There aren't that many three pound gold nuggets just waiting for us in river beds any more.

 

As the remaining ore is increasingly diluted, the cost of the mining / refining operation skyrockets.  T.E. Graedel at the Yale School of Forestry and Env Science has some great insights on worldwide resource flows.  Paul uses the copper example, which is a great one.  Zambia exports 95% of their copper.  Japan imports 90% of their copper.  For countries with great need but limited means, it makes a lot of economic sense to take a look at landfills, where the resources are mixed, but highly refined.   

 

And from a more holistic perspective, the cost of mining and manufacturing has never accurately reflected the cost of restoring the environment it eats.  I certainly don't have to spend paragraphs describing those costs in this forum, but they're real and simply not reflected (currently).  They will be.

 

... and the price of resuscitation is looking better and better.  Of course, from greenGoat's perspective, we certainly don't have to wait for that ... we begin with modular design / designing for deconstruction and end with market placement for building materials.

 

Regards,

 

Amy Bauman

greenGoat

www.greengoat.org

617-666-5253

[Alan Muller]

>Most of the people I hear talking about wanting to dig up landfills
>say they want to put the results through incinerators. This seems
>self-evidently absurd to me, given the added dirt and moisture
>compared to the waste originally dumped, not to mention the loss of
>fuel value through areobic and anerobic chemistry gone on. (Of
>course, we think incineration of MSW in the first place is absurd....)

Taking the example of metals such as copper: Yes, it may be in
there. But are there any credible processes for separating it from
all the other goodies?

Seems to me the real point is the foolishness of dumping commingled
wastes in the first place. If we don't feel we can justify
separating what we are dumping *before* we dump it, are we likely to
justify it after we have made the task far more difficult and less
rewarding....?

(Granted there are examples of economic reprocessing of waste
dumps--usually from mining where the pile competes with the
now-lower-grade ore that would otherwise be used.)

Alan

Alan Muller, Executive Director
Green Delaware
Box 69
Port Penn, DE 19731 USA
(302)834-3466
fax (302)836-3005
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www.greendel.org