Landfill Mining of Legacy MSW: Global Insights and Indian Experience

Mohit Somani has been serving as an Assistant Professor in the School of Infrastructure at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, India since October 2023. He earned his Ph.D. from IIT Delhi, India in 2021. His research specialization lies in Geoenvironmental Engineering, with a primary focus on landfills, remediation of contaminated soil, and resource recovery. Before joining IIT Bhubaneswar, Dr. Somani worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Norwegian Geotechnical Engineering, Oslo in Norway. He has authored 30 research papers published in international journals and conferences. Noteworthy recognitions include Distinction in Doctoral Research and the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from IIT Delhi. His contributions extend internationally, having received prestigious fellowships and scholarships, such as the Newton-Bhabha Fellowship from the British Council, Mobilitas Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Estonia (European Union), Research Mobility Grant from Campus France, and the ISWASWIS Scholarship for attending a winter school at UTA Arlington, Texas.

Manoj Datta is Emeritus Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Delhi where he has been teaching and conducting research since 1980. His areas of interest include soil mechanics, geotechnical & geoenvironmental engineering, landfill engineering, foundation engineering, ground engineering and earth dams. He has co-authored a book on Geotechnical Engineering and edited three books in the areas of landfills, solid waste management and ash ponds. He has published over 180 papers in journals and conferences and has been consultant to over 150 projects in the areas of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. He has been involved in planning, design, construction and remediation of over two dozen HW & MSW Landfills and contaminated waste disposal sites in India. He has been associated with the Central Pollution Control Board, Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as Ministry of Urban Development in framing of guidelines and design manuals for Municipal Solid Waste landfills and Hazardous Waste landfills. Prof. Datta was the Chairperson of the 6th International Congress on Environmental Geotechnology held by ISSMGE in New Delhi in 2010. Prof. Datta has received several best-paper awards of the Indian Geotechnical Society, Leadership and Lifetime Achievement Awards of IGS (Delhi Chapter). He delivered the prestigious IGS Annual Lecture in 2011 at IGC, Kochi He was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award by IIT Delhi in 2018.

G. V. Ramana is a Professor (HAG) of Geotechnical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He has been with IIT Delhi for the last 27 years and was the Head of the Department of Civil Engineering from 2020 to 2022. He concurrently holds Manoj Datta ‘Chair Professor’ position (2022 – 2024). He was seconded to AIT (Asian Institute of Technology) Bangkok to teach the course Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering by the Government of India in 2005. He is one of the two co-authors of the text book Principles of Soil Dynamics published by CENGAGE in 2010. He was the Associate Editor (for 4 years) of ISET Journal of Earthquake Engineering for Soil Dynamics and Member, Editorial Advisory Panel of “Geotechnical Engineering” published by ICE (for two years). He has supervised 24 Doctoral students and several tens of Masters and Bachelor students. His research works are documented in several International Journals, national journals, international conferences, national conferences and these are often cited (citations > 3200 with an i10 index of 59 and h-index of 28). He has been a member of various expert committees. He has been actively involved with Industries.