Landfills are becoming large concentrations of materials like plastic, aluminum and other. What part of the process of mining landfills and processing the materials for new products, makes mining raw materials from the earth and processing them cheaper?

Question

Landfills are becoming large concentrations of materials like plastic, aluminum and other. What part of the process of mining landfills and processing the materials for new products, makes mining raw materials from the earth and processing them cheaper?

In: Economics

Answer 1

Think of it this way – we have been mining natural resources for ages and have established methods and equipment. Depending upon the type of landfill, mining out usable materials can be done, but each facility can differ and there is no set method to implement. That increases labor and possibly requires additional equipment, both of which increase the costs.

Also, modern landfill methods tend to diminish oxygen needed to rot organic material. Add to that the fact that post 1950 landfills are packed with unusable plastics that will need to be separated and that newer facilities have everything wrapped in plastic bags, the work necessary to get recoverable material is very costly.

The optimal thing on this topic would be to mine the oldest landfills that have practically composted the waste first. Then, if technology catches up move on to newer facilities.