ETN & EIT RawMaterials Summer School “To mine or not to mine”
10 September 2018 - 12 September 2018
On 10-12 September 2018, the Summer School “To mine or not to mine – A multi-criteria assessment of the landfill mining of municipal and industrial solid waste deposits” will take place in Leuven, Belgium. The Summer School is a joint initiative of the EU Horizon 2020 projects ETN SOCRATES and ETN NEW-MINE, in collaboration with the EIT RawMaterials supported project IMAGINE. Further support is provided by SIM² KU Leuven, EURELCO and the Arenberg Doctoral School (Leuven, 29-3-2018).
Rationale for the Summer School
Resource scarcity, climate change and increased pressure on environment and health necessitate the transition from a fossil-based, linear economy to a low-carbon, circular economy. What was considered as waste in the past, becomes a resource for tomorrow. Increasing attention is given to the possibility of the mining and/or reprocessing of municipal and industrial solid waste deposits. But is it really feasible to mine these secondary deposits? Do we have the appropriate technology? Is it economically viable? Does the mining of these deposits indeed contribute to a safer environment and health situation? Does it lead to new CO2 reductions? And do people want a mining project “in their backyard”?
On 10-12 September 2017, the joint ETN SOCRATES, ETN NEW-MINE & EIT RawMaterials 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 and policy perspective. Two landfill types will be studied, being municipal solid waste landfills (NEW-MINE) & industrial monolandfills, containing e.g. mine tailings, metallurgical sludges, ferrous and non-ferrous slags and bottom ashes (SOCRATES).