I’ve spent the last years with my boots deep in landfills.
Not talking about “visits,” “consulting days,” or “inspections.”
I mean real work: excavating 40-year-old waste cells, separating the materials, transforming dirty forgotten trash into clean, valuable secondary raw materials—metals, plastics, fuels, aggregates, fibers—everything industry is desperately looking for right now.

And here’s the truth:
Landfills are not waste repositories. They are vaults.
Vaults of copper.
Vaults of aluminum.
Vaults of plastics that can be converted into fuel.
Vaults of rare components buried inside old electronics, appliances, and industrial scraps.

Every time I open a landfill cell, I don’t see trash.
I see inventory.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

THE REALITY MOST PEOPLE MISS: LAND FILLS UP, BUT VALUE DOESN’T DISAPPEAR

When a landfill is closed, people assume “it’s done.”
But what I see—because I’ve excavated it myself—is a perfectly preserved archive of high-value materials that never lost their commercial power.

Take an average 40-year-old American landfill.
Across the U.S., we have more than 8,000 of them sitting untouched, locked, and decaying.
Inside each one?

A treasure chest.

Look at these average recovery yields per every 1 million tons of excavated buried waste:

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| Material Category | Average Recovery % |

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| Ferrous Metals | 3–6% |

| Non-Ferrous Metals | 0.6–1.2% |

| Plastics (SRF feed) | 12–18% |

| Paper/Fibers | 8–12% |

| Glass/Aggregates | 25–35% |

| Soil Fraction | 30–40% |

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Now translate that into raw value:

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| Material Category | Market Value ($/ton) | Output |

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| Ferrous Metals | $180–230 | 30,000–60,000 t

| Non-Ferrous Metals | $900–2,000 | 6,000–12,000 t

| Plastics (SRF) | $60–150 | 120,000–180,000 t

| Aggregates | $5–15 | 250,000–350,000 t

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Even before touching the plastics-to-fuel opportunity, the numbers explode.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

THE COST DIFFERENCE: LAND FILLING VS LAND FORTUNE

Traditional mining is expensive because nature buried the ore.
Landfill mining is profitable because humans did the burying for us.

Here’s the simplest comparison you’ll ever see:

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| Step | Traditional Mining | Landfill Mining |

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| Exploration | $10–50M | $0.15–1.5M |

| Permitting (time) | 3–7 years | 6–18 months |

| Mine Development | $50–800M | $0–10M |

| Processing Plant | $100–2,000M | $5–50M |

| Tailings Management | $50–500M | $2–30M |

| Time to Cash Flow | 5–10 years | 3–12 months |

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If you’ve ever wondered why mining companies fear market volatility, this is why.
A new mine costs between $1 and $3 billion before it produces one kilogram of metal.
A landfill project starts producing revenue in months.

And I’ve seen it repeatedly.
Mining waste moves cash fast—because the material is already extracted.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

WHY LANDFILLS WORK LIKE INDUSTRIAL VAULTS

Traditional mines have grades.
Landfills have layers of products.

Every time I excavate a landfill, I see decades of consumer and industrial history:

• 1970s construction leftovers

• 1980s appliances full of copper

• 1990s electronics with precious metals

• 2000s plastics perfect for SRF

• 2010s textiles and fibers

Each decade is a geological stratum—
but instead of minerals formed over millions of years,
you get ready-made industrial materials.

This is why landfill mining is not “sustainability.”
It’s not “ecology.”
It’s not “green.”

It’s business. Efficient business.
The type that entrepreneurs can scale quickly and governments can support without politics.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

REAL EXTRACTION RESULTS FROM THE FIELD

Let me give you a real-world, on-the-ground style chart—based on the averages of the sites we worked on.

Material Output Per 100,000 Tons of Excavated Landfill Waste

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| Material | Tons Recovered |

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| Ferrous Metals | 4,800 t |

| Non-Ferrous Metals | 900 t |

| Plastics (SRF Feed) | 15,000 t |

| Aggregates | 32,000 t |

| Soil Fraction | 38,000 t |

| Residuals | <10,000 t |

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Now attach market values:

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| Material Category | Revenue Range ($/ton) |

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| Ferrous | $180–230 |

| Non-Ferrous | $900–2000 |

| Plastics (SRF) | $60–150 |

| Aggregates | $5–15 |

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Total direct revenue potential from 100,000 tons of excavated waste:

$6.8M to $14.1M

And that’s without:

• energy recovery

• landfill life extension revenue

• land repurposing

• carbon credits

• municipal subsidies

• operational fees paid by cities

When we include the full spectrum of income, the real number goes above $20M depending on the site.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

THE ADVANTAGES FOR COUNTRIES

Countries with landfills hold a distributed network of natural resource hubs:

• No need for exploration

• No geopolitical dependency

• No deep mining risk

• Raw materials near industries

• Faster economic cycles

Look at this conceptual graphic showing time to raw material supply:

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| Source | Time to First Output |

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| New Mine | 5–10 years |

| Recycling Plant | 12–36 months |

| Landfill Mining | 3–12 months |

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This is why landfill mining is a national strategy, not a local project.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

THE ADVANTAGES FOR ENTREPRENEURS

If you own a scrap yard, a landfill, a transfer station, or you work in the waste or construction sector—
landfill mining is the most profitable expansion opportunity available today.

Why?

Because the supply is free.
The materials are already there.
And municipalities often pay you to clean the site.

Entrepreneurs love:

• predictable margins

• low CAPEX

• fast returns

• scalable operations

• multiple revenue streams

And landfill mining delivers all of them.

Here’s a simple profitability chart for a standard 100,000-ton project:

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| Item | Value |

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| Revenue (Materials) | $6.8–14.1M |

| Revenue (Services) | $2–6M |

| Total Revenue | $8.8–20.1M |

| Operational Costs | $4–8M |

| Net Margin | 40–60%+ |

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Margins that traditional mining can only dream of.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

THE FINAL WORD: LANDFILLS ARE NOT PROBLEMS—THEY ARE DISTRIBUTED MINES

I’ve worked inside landfills across continents.
In every country, I learned the same thing:

Waste is not the end of a product.
It’s the beginning of a new industry.

When you mine a landfill, you’re not chasing sustainability.
You’re building a national resource network, one site at a time.

You’re unlocking:

• new materials

• new energy

• new land

• new jobs

• new profits

And the best part?

You don’t need a billion dollars.
You don’t need a decade.
You don’t need to fight nature.

You simply need to open the vault.

👉 Book a 20-minute call with Sam: https://sambarrili.com/schedule-free-20min-call

To Your Success

Sam Barrili

The Waste Management Alchemist