A Sustainable Approach Towards Rejuvenation of Mandur Landfill Through Biomining of Legacy Waste

In the past few decades, the global focus has been on modernization through the indefinite exploitation of natural resources. Worldwide rapid industrialization, advancement in technology, uncontrolled population, and unplanned urbanization have resulted in a problem in the management of waste. Waste management was never a priority and it kept on accumulating for decades. The waste in landfills has been releasing toxic gases, polluting groundwater, causing loss of biodiversity, etc., and has impacted the lives of people in surrounding areas. To mitigate the environmental impacts and bring the resources back to a circular economy, a novel and sustainable approach is landfill biomining. In this study, the legacy waste of 21 lakh tonnes from Mandur landfill is excavated, and an effective microbial consortium is sprayed at regular intervals. The sun-dried waste is segregated and screened. Recovered combustibles 25% with a calorific value of 5319 kcal/ Kg can be used for incineration or co-combustion in the cement industry while recyclables such as metals, wires (1%), etc., can be recycled. The inert such as stones recovered can be used for infrastructure or paving roads and the soil-like 36% obtained can be used as soil conditioner or for landscaping and beautification of the landfill as a park or playground. The paper also discusses the energy potential of combustibles and the technical feasibility of setting up incineration technology.