Introducing an approach to assess environmental pressures from integrated remediation and landfill mining

The aim of the paper is to introduce an approach for evaluating integrated remediation and landfill mining scenarios. Since completed projects with similar scope and goals mostly have been pilot studies or projects with little emphasis on resource extraction, there is very little real case data to access. Thus, scenarios for three different routes have been established: Remediation only; Remediation combined with resource extraction using a mobile separation plant; and finally Remediation combined with resource extraction using a large stationary separation plant. Furthermore, the approach uses Monte Carlo simulations to address the uncertainties attached to each of the different steps of the scenarios, such as separation efficiencies, transport distances and recycling benefits. The approach can be used to assess the probability of results for the different scenarios, as well to study the influences of major parameters. In the future, the approach will be broadened to include economic parameters, and a large effort will be put on validating and analyzing the model parameters and assumptions. For instance, there is a need to study the dependency between different parameters to see if they are positively correlated; otherwise, the uncertainty could be overestimated. Furthermore, scenario uncertainties need to be added and studied.