Metals and rare Earth’s elements in landfills: case studies

Landfills are considered as places where the life cycle of products ends and materialshave been “disposed forever”. The landfill mining (LFM) approach can deal with formerdumpsites and this material may become important for circular economy perspectiveswithin the concept “Beyond the zero waste”. Potential material recovery should includeperspectives of recycling of critical industrial metals where rare Earth elements (REEs)are playing more and more important role. Real-time applied LFM projects in the BalticRegion have shown the potential of fine-grained fractions (including clay and colloidalmatter) of excavated waste as storage of considerably large amounts of valuable metalsand REEs. Analytical screening studies have extended a bit further the understanding offine fraction contents of excavated, separated and screened waste in a circular economyperspective. The Swedish Institute and Latvian Research Program “Res Prod” supportedthe research.