Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?

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Because it’s a lot more complicated and expensive than mining native minerals right now, because you have to deal With all the other random things mixed in.

I've wondered why they haven't implemented a compromise between recycling and tossing, which would just be segregating certain materials for later sale or recycling. If they put all the plastic bottles in one section of landfill, all the glass, etc it would be a bet toward there someday being a change in technology, materials science, or market prices that might make it worth mining. It would also be cheaper because the same trucks could pick it up (some cities have this, put your recyclables in a blue bag and throw them in the regular trash). One of the asinine things about recycling (to me) is that they have another has guzzling truck. There should be better accounting done on recycling so we can eliminate feel-good practices and only do things that actually help the environment. Sorting trash (at the landfill) would be a great step forward for this.

Some years ago, Switzerland completely stopped using landfills. All garbage is incinerated. The resulting slag is then processed to reclaim nearly all metals as well as some other important elements.

Of course, the burning creates CO2. However, you don't have to mine and refine metal ores, and the incinerators also generate electricity and district heating. So the ecological balance is actually pretty good.

As a final bonus, you don't have literal square miles of landfills that occupy land and eventually will leak lovely chemicals into groundwater. The slag is far less problematic, and there is a lot less of it to deal with.