Landfill Mining: Is it worth the trouble?

Landfill mining started-off back in 1953 in Israel and the rest of the world has only begun to catch up with it recently. The advantages and disadvantages of landfill mining are something that most corporations would not readily answer. The reason why it has caught up only recently was simply because there were other more important events that took place after 1953 after which most countries forgot about the whole concept. Landfill mining is profitable. It is known fact that more aluminium can be extracted from a landfill as compared to extracting aluminium from ores from a similar area of mined land.



Landfill mining has its advantages; it allows better aeration of the soil in the area, while the mining company recovers valuable recyclable materials which allows for less material to dump back in (creating that extra space). Most people see this as a way of protecting the environment by cleaning up the soil doing the world a favour. The reason why landfill mining has taken off is simply because it is more profitable. It is more profitable to extract a tonne of aluminium via landfill mining, than to extract ores from the earth’s crust, process it and then using power hungry (expensive) plasma arc reactors to create virgin aluminium.

Some people would say “why don’t we simply sort things out instead of dumping them in and then sorting everything out?” well that is because we as human beings lack the initiative to do the same. If all of us here in Dubai segregated our trash there would be no need to open up landfills as only organic waste would land up in there. Governments spend enormous amounts of funding on garbage recycling facilities only because the people in Dubai would simply refuse to segregate different types of recyclable items.

Metal recyclers in Dubai too suffer because of consumer misbehaviour when it comes to garbage segregation. Aluminium cans, plastics and all sorts of packaging are often dumped together only to end up at garbage recycling plant where fortunately for us, they do find their way back to the recycling companies in Dubai.


So yes landfill mining is good for us but the question that we should be asking is—why are we adding to the confusion to begin with?

Scrap copper is everywhere—You just have to look a Little Deeper

Copper since its discovery has come a long way and has found multiple uses in various industries around the globe. Copper has a long list of characteristics which is why it has found so many uses; from excellent electrical conductivity to high thermal conductivity in a variety of applications. We often come in contact with copper at various places; but since the applications of copper are usually hidden within the appliances, decor and machines that we use, it hard to find out where they actually are and how important every bit is to us in our daily lives. When such products that we use on a daily basis become old and unusable it is wise to get them exposed and then sell them off saving the environment (reducing copper mining) and making a little profit in the bargain.

Copper products existed in many forms, in the olden days. Most utensils were made from copper because it simply allowed heat to spread evenly over the bottoms of cooking utensils, making them energy efficient; allowing the food to heat up properly. As mentioned above, copper is always hidden from plain sight in most of today’s applications; given below are some of the objects you can check for copper which can be sold off as copper scrap to any scrap metal recycler in Dubai.

Decor and Fittings: Such decors and fittings unless maintained, may have lost their original copper colour and turned green due to corrosion. They may have also been painted over just to make them look presentable. Old houses or mansions with a lot of antique fittings usually have lots of copper fittings especially in the pipes and plumbing.


Old Appliances: Copper and energy efficiency always go hand in hand which means that anything to do with heating or cooling via electricity (mainly heating) would usually contain copper parts inside. Appliances such as fans, old washing machines, boilers, dryers etc. would always have copper windings which can easily be stripped off with common tools. Caution must be taken when it comes to comes to copper radiators and refrigeration equipment since these usually contain gases (or liquids) that can be harmful and must be delivered to the experts to be dealt with.

Household Wiring: Renovating? Well you have probably got gold in the renovation trash waiting to be discovered. A home renovation means that old wiring—which normally ended up with the renovation trash in a landfill—would often be replaced by a new set of improved, energy efficient, copper electrical wiring. This is why it is wise to strip the insulation off the wire and sell the copper separately; or at least separate it from the remaining wood, dry walls and old plaster—that would go together to the landfill leading to copper wastage.

Automobile Parts: Bought some new spares for your car or bike? Have a closer look into how they work and you will discover that a lot of parts use copper extensively. These parts can be sold-off to a scrap metal trader, who would deliver it to a copper recycling facility in Dubai.

Single Stream Recycling can Benefit the City of Dubai

Most of us here in Dubai have probably heard of recycling, but single stream recycling? Well, it simply refers to putting all types of recyclable materials together and let a private company handle the segregating bit.


Research shows that recycling has worked better in towns and cities abroad like in the United States when single channel recycling was introduced. No longer did people have to take the trouble to segregate different types of recyclable items and separate the trash that they were trying to get rid off on a daily basis. It became a success because there was little effort required in segregating garbage from the recyclable items and that people would quickly adapt to it; whereas normally they would dump garbage altogether and avoid the original complex recycling process as a whole.


Single stream recycling can also save money because companies that handle such recyclable items pay for those items. The government thus, no longer needs to pay landfills to get rid of such garbage.
How does this help the environment? Well, it simply speeds up the whole process because everyone at every level of the hierarchy is co-operating and when this happens, the right recyclable items get channelled onto the right path eventually reaching the manufacturers on time.




If an aluminium can reaches a scrap metal recycler in Dubai on time, it prevents the need for manufacturers to purchase virgin materials to keep their production numbers up and running. In a similar way the quicker the different types of ferrous metal scrap lands up at scrap dealers in Dubai, the lesser will be the requirement for newer and rarer earth metals across different industries.
Single stream recycling not only encourages recycling, but clears up the bottlenecks in the recycling process.

Have an old car that nobody wants?

So you ended up keeping and maintaining that old car over the years, but now with the new emission norms, it can no longer be driven. That old beauty which you have used down the years has now turned into a beast of burden that nobody wants to buy.
A lot of car lovers get stuck up in such situations where they simply cannot get rid of a vehicle. This can happen over time because they get too outdated or because their maintenance costs increase to a level that they become too expensive to own. Rising fuel costs are not too helpful in such a situation either. The next best thing that one could do is find another owner or let it just lie there in the parking lot getting covered in dust. After a couple of months, such vehicles eventually end up getting scrapped at the junk yards.



What does one do? If you love the environment, the best thing you could do, is to take your vehicle to a car recycler. Car recyclers are not scrap dealers in Dubai! They are a team of mechanics who would disassemble your car completely, in a step-by-step manner and then give you a price for the different parts individually. This helps the environment by not junking the entire car, with all the lubricants, and oils intact, which eventually leak out (including toxic substances from batteries) and damage the environment.
This apart from helping the car owner get better value also helps channel the various metals that can be used and helps them reach scrap metal recyclers in Dubai. Scrap metal traders in Dubai would then segregate the ferrous metal scrap and re-package or melt them into ingots which get delivered to manufacturers; eventually reaching the production line as a new product.

How this helps, is that it prevents the need for virgin materials that are required to build new products. Iron or steel castings and other automotive parts can be made from recycled metals preventing mining and pollution. As we all know, mining does degrade an environment to a level that it simply cannot be restored. So the next time you need to know someone who is about to junk their car, stop them and tell them what they could do and help save the environment.