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“Is ELFM profitable?” What a FAQ?! It is such a frequently asked question about Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) and I even remember asking the same when I started my PhD two years ago. But until now, my answer is the cliché, it depends.  However, I think I made a bit of a progress in structuring my thoughts. So here is ...

One of the main features of the current consumer society, is materials production for mass consumption. This results in the generation of huge amounts of (municipal solid) waste (MSW). The social, environmental and health risks linked to the disposal of waste in landfills has stimulated the European Commission to implement solid waste management policies. The main practices in waste management ...

“You said you worked hard? Well, maybe you need to work a little harder. Is that really the limit of your strength? Could the you of tomorrow beat you today? Instead of giving in, move forward.” After many months of article reading, experiments and data analysis, I came out with my first scientific article. Despite reading literature and scientific documents ...

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, ...

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 ...

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, ...

“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 ...