Stationary Landfill Mining and Resource Recovery Center
Stationary Landfill Mining & Resource Recovery Center
A permanent industrial facility that turns closed landfills into commodity mines. 7 automated processing stages. 90%+ autonomous operation. Energy-positive. All proven, all commercial.
Complete engineering package — ready for permitting, financing, and construction
Investment Thesis
There are over 10,000 closed landfills in the United States. Each one is an above-ground mine containing ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, plastics, glass, and recoverable soil. EPA data shows a typical municipal landfill contains 7-10% metals, 12-18% plastics, 5-8% glass, and 25-40% reusable soil by weight. This facility extracts those materials at industrial scale, sells them at commodity prices, generates electricity from the non-recyclable remainder, and returns remediated land to productive use.
This is not speculative technology. Every piece of equipment in this facility is manufactured today and operating at existing facilities worldwide. The engineering package specifies real vendors, real model numbers, and real prices.
Valuation Summary
| Total Capital Cost (CAPEX) | $42,500,000 |
| Annual Operating Cost (OPEX) | $6,300,000 |
| Annual Revenue (Base Case) | $13,500,000 |
| Annual Net Operating Income | $7,200,000 |
| Simple Payback Period | 5 – 7 years |
| Project IRR (15-year horizon) | 12 – 16% |
| Revenue Range (pessimistic to optimistic) | $8,400,000 – $19,800,000/yr |
| Annual Throughput (design basis) | 195,000 tons/year |
| Net Electricity Export | 1.5 MW continuous |
| Patent Protection | Utility application 19/540,453 |
Facility at a Glance
Processing Capacity
tons per day input capacity
Material Recovery
of input mass diverted to saleable commodities
Autonomous Operation
autonomous — 14 staff replace 45-60 conventional
Energy Output
net electricity export to grid from thermal unit
Site Footprint
acres depending on buffer requirements
Revenue Streams
independent revenue sources from one facility
7-Stage Processing Pipeline
Trommel Screening
Rotating drum screens separate material by size into three fractions: fines (<25mm), mid-range (25-150mm), and oversize (>150mm). Oversize material passes through a slow-speed shredder for a second pass.
Equipment: Terex/McCloskey trommel, SSI Dual-Shear M85 shredder
Magnetic Separation
Overhead suspended electromagnets and drum magnets pull ferrous metals (steel, iron) from the material stream. Continuous operation, no control logic needed beyond on/off.
Equipment: Eriez SE-7 suspended magnet, Eriez RE7 drum magnet
Eddy Current Separation
High-speed rotating magnetic field repels non-ferrous metals (aluminum, copper, brass) into a separate collection chute. Rotor speed adjustable via VFD for different material mixes.
Equipment: Eriez RevX-E eddy current separator
Density Separation
Air classifiers separate light fraction (film plastic, paper, textiles) from heavy fraction (rigid plastics, glass, stone). Sink-float tanks further separate plastics by specific gravity.
Equipment: Westeria Recuwind air classifier, Nihot SDS
Optical / NIR Sorting
Near-infrared spectrometers identify plastic types at 320 scan lines per second. Compressed air nozzle arrays eject targeted polymers: PET, HDPE, and PP/PS in sequence. 95%+ detection accuracy.
Equipment: 3x TOMRA AUTOSORT units in series
Robotic Quality Control
AI-powered robotic arms perform 80 picks per minute for final quality control on sorted streams. Self-learning system improves accuracy over time. Replaces 20-30 manual sorters entirely.
Equipment: 2x AMP Robotics Cortex delta robots
Thermal Processing & Energy Recovery
Non-recyclable residuals are combusted on a moving grate with heat recovery. Steam drives a turbine-generator producing 2.5 MW gross / 1.5 MW net. Full emissions control meets EPA MACT standards with continuous monitoring.
Equipment: Babcock & Wilcox / Covanta modular WTE, baghouse, SCR, CEMS
Revenue Model (Conservative)
| Ferrous metals (steel, iron) | $2,500,000 – $3,500,000/yr |
| Non-ferrous metals (Al, Cu, brass) | $2,650,000 – $8,300,000/yr |
| Sorted plastics (PET, HDPE, PP) | $2,200,000 – $4,400,000/yr |
| Glass cullet | $140,000 – $280,000/yr |
| Recovered soil & aggregate | $195,000 – $585,000/yr |
| Electricity sales (1.5 MW net) | $560,000 – $1,120,000/yr |
| Tipping fees / gate fees | $1,500,000 – $4,000,000/yr |
| Total Annual Revenue | $8,400,000 – $19,800,000 |
Based on 2024-2025 ISRI commodity pricing, EPA waste characterization data, and SWANA landfill mining studies. Base case uses midpoint values.
Autonomy Architecture
This facility is designed for 90%+ autonomous operation. Traditional recycling facilities employ 40-60 manual sorters per shift standing on picking lines. This facility replaces them entirely with machine vision, robotic arms, and sensor-driven conveyor routing.
Conventional MRF
45-60 employees
20-30 manual sorters per shift
Labor cost: $2.5M+/year
Human error in sorting
Injury risk on picking lines
This Facility
14 employees total
Zero manual sorters
Labor cost: $910,000/year
95%+ machine sorting accuracy
Staff in control room, not process floor
Central control: Allen-Bradley ControlLogix 5580 PLC with 8 distributed I/O racks, Ignition SCADA for visualization and data historian, OPC-UA integration with TOMRA and AMP systems. One control room operator can monitor the entire facility. The architecture supports multi-site monitoring as the business scales.
Why a Center, Not a Truck
Mobile Truck (Project 15)
10-50 tons/day capacity
30-ton weight limit constrains equipment
3 separation stages (cramped)
60-70% uptime (travel, setup time)
Each site needs separate permits
Stationary Center (This Project)
500-2,000 tons/day capacity
Unlimited equipment (concrete pad)
7 full industrial separation stages
85-95% uptime (industrial standard)
One facility permit covers all operations
Trucks haul excavated material to the center from multiple landfill sites within a 50-mile radius. The center is the correct architecture for industrial-scale resource recovery.
What You Get
- Complete technical specifications with engineering calculations (structural, thermal, mass balance, energy balance, noise analysis)
- Facility design with site plan, building layout, material flow routing, and environmental controls
- 7-stage processing pipeline with equipment specs, failure modes, and maintenance intervals for every component
- Equipment bill of materials with real manufacturers, model numbers, and installed costs ($42.5M total)
- Energy recovery system design: moving-grate combustion, HRSG, steam turbine, full emissions control (baghouse, ACI, SCR, SDA, CEMS)
- Autonomous operations architecture: PLC/SCADA control system, sensor specifications per stage, control philosophy, fault handling
- Business plan with conservative financials, sensitivity analysis (pessimistic/base/optimistic), and staffing model
- Regulatory pathway: federal, state, and local permitting timeline (18-36 months), compliance requirements, estimated permitting costs
- Working SCADA control system simulator (Python, standard library only, runs immediately)
- Patent protection under consolidated utility application 19/540,453
Equipment Vendors (All Commercial, All Proven)
Sorting & Separation
TOMRA (optical/NIR), AMP Robotics (robotic QC), Eriez (magnetic & eddy current), Westeria/Nihot (density)
Thermal & Energy
Babcock & Wilcox / Covanta (WTE), Siemens (turbine/generator), Valmet (combustion controls)
Heavy Equipment
Caterpillar (loaders, excavators), Terex/McCloskey (trommels), SSI Shredding (size reduction)
Controls & Automation
Allen-Bradley / Rockwell (PLC, I/O, HMI), Inductive Automation Ignition (SCADA), Cisco (industrial Ethernet)
Complete engineering package for a facility that pays for itself in 5-7 years.
Every specification, every calculation, every vendor — ready for your engineering team to take to construction.
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