Author(s)

Simon P. M. Berkhout, Bert P.M. Oudenhoven, Peter C. Rem

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The bottom ashes resulted annually from the incineration of municipal solid waste in Europe contain about 400,000 tonnes of metallic aluminium and 200,000 tonnes of heavy non-ferrous metals, such as copper and zinc. Efficient recovery of this non-ferrous metal resource requires state-of-the-art separation technologies and a continuous feedback of laboratory analyses of the metal products and the depleted bottom ash to the operators of the bottom ash treatment plants. A methodology is presented for the optimization of the production of non-ferrous metal value from Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator bottom ash. Results for an incineration plant in the Netherlands show that efficient recycling can have a significant impact on value recovery as well as on non-ferrous metal recycling rates, producing up to 8% more revenue and 25% more metals from the ash.

Urban Mining, Solid Waste, MSWI Bottom Ash, Non-Ferrous Metals

S. Berkhout, B. Oudenhoven and P. Rem, "Optimizing Non-Ferrous Metal Value from MSWI Bottom Ashes," Journal of Environmental Protection, Vol. 2 No. 5, 2011, pp. 564-570. doi: 10.4236/jep.2011.25065.