Getting Rid of Land Mines

Landmines cost a mere few dollars (around US$2-3) and planting them is easy; removal however, is difficult, tedious, dangerously and most importantly, costly, at around US$500 - US$2 000 per mine.
Wildly speculative estimates on the costs to remove the world's land mines come in at about US$33 billion, running up to US$58 billion.
However, this is a growing problem : each year, the 36 or so landmine-producing countries churn out about 10 to 20 million units, of which, 2-5 million are added to the 'stock' of mines in the ground by almost all countries.

For those of you "fact & figure"-buffs out there, below are some for you to chew on...

In Cambodia, estimates hover around US$12 million annually for 10 years to remove the 10 million land mines left from the war
In Cambodia, there are 60,000 victims of land mines ... meaning, every 237th Cambodian is an amputee
7 million land mines were laid in Iraq and Kuwait before and during the Gulf War
Kuwait spent $800 million clearing out land mines after the Gulf War

Methodology
In large open areas, tracked vehicles with failing chains are mostly able to do the job.
In less accessible/poorer areas, the metal detector is used; of which, some newer models are also able to pick out many plastic ones too (although not fool-proof).
In some other countries, a simpler method is employed - knives probing the gounds at shallow angles... a tedious and dangerous method.
Some newer but not so widely praticed methods include sniffing dogs and other high-tech methods employing radar, sonar, thermal neutron, microwave, and even satellites.
But for now, the old-fasioned way is still the most common one, being most thorough and least costly.

It is important to note, at this point, that not only must these mines be detected and removed, they must also be destroyed ... since there now also exists the threat that mines are dug up to be re-sold and re-used. According to one mine clearance expert, British mines are being dug up in Mozambique because they were sold to rebels by some Libyans - whom had removed them from their native soils.

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