Economic and system feasibility study of municipal waste stowage in underground coal mines

Public concern about surface disposal of municipal waste offers the mining industry potentially enormous economic and environmental opportunities. If underground space created by mining can successfully be utilized for safe waste stowage during the mining process, there will be immediate and substantial benefits to all sectors of the underground mining industry. To investigate an integrated system of mining and waste stowage, an economic and feasibility model was developed. Major issues include waste transportation, emplacement area, waste characteristics after emplacement, and alterations to current mining operations. In this preliminary investigation, economic feasibility is the basis for comparison between alternative systems in this research. Past and existing underground waste disposal systems are used to evaluate the model.