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Landfill Mining - LFM - has the potential to have significant economic and environmental impacts. Historic landfill sites have many unquantifiable variables and estimates must be made of the wastes within them and the subsequent impacts that those wastes may have. It is only in recent years that accurate knowledge, and then only in broad terms, is available to assess what wastes a landfill site may contain.
Green Fire Engineered Reclamation is a landfill mining company.
Green Fire is a passionate multi disciplinary professional organization specializing in carefully engineered waste remediation and reclamation.
We could be considered a high tech company with the innovations we are working with but a better term would be an all tech company. Green Fire carefully choses the best technology to use for any given application based on properly engineered and tested processes. Every project is a little different. This is why Green Fire is made up of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and academic experts.
Landfill Mining
As available land and reusable resources become increasingly scarce, options to harness these from alternative sources become more sought after. One of the options available is Landfill Mining (LFM).
LFM is commonly understood to be the extraction of waste from a landfill site after that site has closed and is no longer accepting waste. Green Fire is preemptive in its approach, we want to be there before it closes, Our mission is to not only recover the land but reclaim and reuse the waste. Green Fire intercepts and stems the flow of waste to the landfill.
The concept of LFM is not new: There have been examples cited since the later 1940s and it is likely that earlier, unrecorded activities took place.
LMF is not a practice unique to one country, region or has any specific strategy that determines whether it should take place or not.
Traditionally the reasons for LFM are often unique to the site itself and there are specific factors that may lead to a LFM operation. Green Fire is mining the proportion of the world’s waste still being disposed of in open landfills. Open landfills have the potential for significant resources to be recovered post-disposal. In the future old landfills are likely to be considered as exploitable material resources.
Green Fire; LFM, Economics and Humanity
While there are a number of reasons for Green Fire LFM, It appears that there are four main strategic reasons for these operations:
Extraction recycling potential;
extraction for energy recovery;
the reclamation of land; and
solving the humanitarian condition of the landfill.
While the first two are clear economic arguments about the potential income from the deposited wastes, the third has greater potential for considering environmental sustainability and the forth, the greatest reclamation of them all, reclaiming the children that live on the landfill.
These reasons may be independent purposes for LFM but are being combined to deliver wider benefits and maximize the LFM opportunity.
The Need For Green Fire LFM
The reasons covered by the broad term ‘landfill reclamation’ may include one or a combination of the following:
There is need to recover arable land from landfill sites
The landfill site may form a physical barrier to the metropolitan expansion and development that is planned,
It may be contaminating the groundwater or surrounding area and the source requires removal;
There is need to reclaim the lives of the poor women and children that only have the dump as life’s hope
There is need for reclaiming the waste for reuse.
There is need to recover reusable raw materials, precious and non-precious
There is need to convert waste to energy
Materials and energy recovery are likely to be the primary economic factors, land reclamation may be driven by environmental reasoning but the Children of the Landfill and improving their lives is a critical factor for Green Fire.
Green Fire Landfill Mining
Green Fire extracts the wastes for their material values in the market place. Metals and plastics are those materials which have the highest values and the lowest level of degradation within a landfill site. These are essential targets for LFM. However, there are other materials that have a specific local value. All non-marketable materials are 99% pure and sterile. These materials are reused to provide for the Children of the Landfill.
Recovery of material for conversion to energy, extracts the value of the hydrocarbon portion of the waste turning it into fuels. While not a ‘renewable’ source of energy in the purest sense, with dwindling fossil fuels and the need for more sustainable use of natural resources, the Green Fire processing of landfill waste provides a low cost local resolution to energy demand.
When the widest range of benefits is considered, the greatest humanitarian benefits can be derived from a Green Fire LFM operation. Green Fire will have a significant social impact and will have significant economic and environmental impacts on the Children of the Landfill.
The Value in Landfills
Historic landfill sites have many unquantifiable variables and estimates must be made of the wastes within them and the subsequent impacts that those wastes may have. It is only in recent years that accurate knowledge, and then only in broad terms, is available to assess what wastes a landfill site may contain. There will always be uncertainty of value in what LFM will produce.
A Green Fire Engineered LFM project is always safe, and 100% effective with waste remediation and reclamation while providing humanitarian aid to the “ Children of the Landfill:.
I appreciate your attention
Mike Prettyman
For more information come our websites
Chief Information Officer at Green Fire Engineered Reclamation
Children of the Landfill Project
Green Fire Engineered Reclamation
