Landfill Mining - Operational Flow

Operational Flow

Excavators dig up waste mass and transport it, with the help of front end loaders, onto elevator and moving floor conveyor belts. The conveyor belts empty into a coarse, rotating trommel. The large holes in the screen allow most wastes to pass through, leaving behind the oversized, non-processable materials. The oversized wastes are removed from inside the screen. The coarse trommel empties into the fine rotating trommel. The fine rotating trommel allows the soil fraction to pass through, leaving mid-sized, non-biodegradable, mostly recyclable materials. The materials are removed from the screen. These materials are put on a second conveyor belt where an electromagnet removes any ferromagnetic debris. Depending on the level of resource recovery, material can be put through an air classifier which separates light organic material from heavy organic material. The separate streams are then loaded, by front end loaders, onto trucks either for further processing or for sale. Further manual processing can be done on site if processing facilities are too far away to justify the transportation costs.