Europe contains between 150,000 to 500,000 landfill sites, from which 90% could be “non-sanitary”. Remediation actions will soon need to take place in order to prevent any environmental and health problem that these non-sanitary landfills could cause. Enhanced landfill mining (ELFM) could be a solution to manage these landfills and also to reclaim land for society benefits. In ex-situ ELFM, ...

The first day, on Wednesday 5/09, the materials flow of the project was discussed in a workshop managed by the ESRs of work package 4. The general approach of the assessment of Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) by WP4 and the data input required by ESRs were presented. Subsequently, performance parameters of the different processes were discussed in working groups. The ...

At present, almost all that we consume goes in a direct or indirect way to a landfill, and from there, our waste starts to degrade itself producing greenhouse gasses and leaching a lot of toxic compounds which could contaminate our aquifers, our most pure source of water. The organic material starts degrading immediately, but the other fractions need up to hundreds ...

NEW-MINE contributed to the Researchers’ Night in Padova, held on September 28th. Prof. Enrico Bernardo, with the help of ESR Patricia Rabelo Monich, showed the activities concerning the upcycling of industrial waste (comprising waste glass) in the manufacturing of glass-ceramic foams. They demonstrated the obtainment of glass foams by alkali activation of suspensions of glass powders, followed by intensive mechanical stirring. ...

Since long time ago human kind has practiced composting as a common activity and, therefore, nowadays there are many different techniques available for processing our organic waste and turn it into a natural soil conditioner or fertilizer at home. Such practice contributes to close the natural cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous and avoids the need of the application of ...

Today, I want to tell you something about probability. Most people who hear this term intuitively understand what it means. If someone tells them there is a 90% chance for rain they know: better pack an umbrella today. Looking more closely, there are different definitions for probability in science and philosophy. In this blog post, I want to briefly introduce ...

The European Commission has recently published its proposal for the European Research and Innovation Program for the period from 2021 to 2027. The so-called Horizon Europe will succeed the Horizon2020 and was announced as the most ambitious Research and Innovation Program ever launch. The Commission proposal foresee a significant increase of the European Research and Innovation budged relative to the ...

As the good citizens we are, every week when our waste baskets are full, we take out the trash and empty them into those large municipal waste bins, expecting that all that garbage magically disappears from our sight the next day. In a few days we will repeat the same action of throwing away our waste without any bad feelings, ...

On September 10-12, 2017, the joint ETN SOCRATES, ETN NEW-MINE & EIT KIC IMAGINE summer school will be organised in Leuven, Belgium. The Summer School aims at offering an integral approach for the assessment of landfill mining projects. The interdisciplinary training programme aims at going beyond technical assessment, offering an approach to determine the value of landfill mining from an economic, environmental, social ...

“The harness of waterfalls is the most economical method known for drawing energy from the sun” stated the eclectic inventor Nikola Tesla. Both the Greeks and the Romans had realised that as they were already using hydraulic energy to grind wheat in watermills. This usage continued since up to the point that Western Europe and the United States are now ...