New mines will soon be undetectable by their metallic content. Dogs can detect the vapor coming from the explosive filling of mines, but they are temperamental, require long training and tire quickly. Individual location takes time, as it has to be done with great delicacy. UN policy is to destroy mines by detonation using an explosive charge, although safe and reliable, is expensive in explosives and time. Although little research has taken place, mine clearance companies have carried out practical experiments on many conventional and unconventional mechanisms for destroying mines.
Neutralization aims to render mines completely inactive, by biodegradation or mechanical disruption.
Biodegradation involves generating some organism that feeds on certain elements of explosive chemicals, rendering them inert. Mechanical disruption involves destroying mines by breaking them up without actuating them, which has not been proved against steel-cased mines. Only trials will tell whether the mines will actually disintegrate without detonating. In Kuwait, sand was sifted by a machine, adapted from devices used to clean beaches at seaside resorts, which cut off and sifted the top three-inch layer of soil. The machine failed because stones and vegetation clogged the sifting screens, and mines were pushed around the edge of the cutter blade and remained uncleared.