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Why ELFM?

The OVAM databases contain about 2,000 landfill sites in Flanders. The total space taken up by these sites is comparable to the surface of a central city. The origin of these landfill sites can mostly be situated in the period from 1945 to 1995. The economic conditions allowed an inefficient use of raw materials and products, to which waste production can usually be traced back. The effects of half a century of dumping activity have only been considered problematic since the 1980s and involve the pollution of the environment and the obstruction of zoning options.

Pact 2020

In Pact 2020 and Flanders in Action, Flanders has expressed the ambition to take important steps towards a 'circular' economy by 2020 with a use as low as possible of raw materials, energy, water, material and space with as little impact as possible on the environment and nature in Flanders and the rest of the world. The concept of sustainable materials management goes beyond the boundaries of traditional waste management to include the management of the complete materials cycle. Here OVAM holds the view that today's (Urban mining) and yesterday's (Landfill mining) wastes need to become the raw materials for a green circular economy. This form of mining is also described as mining the Anthropocene, the most recent geological period that starts with the industrial revolution. Within the concept of a circular economy the final challenge is that only raw materials from the Anthropocene period are used.