KEY POINTS
- Mining waste, once a major environmental issue, is now a resource.
- New technologies are enabling sustainable waste management practices.
- Regulations and innovation are pushing mining waste management forward.
Mining has become an essential sector in the world economy since it is associated with infrastructure, energy, and industrial sectors. Still, it is one of the greatest contributors of environmental pollution because it produces massive amounts of wastes, including tailings, waste rocks, and polluted water. Consequently, the mining industry has been grappling with challenges to change its perceptions towards waste management at a very high rate.
As mining organizations become under pressure from governments and the public to embrace sustainability, new waste management techniques are developing that may help to reduce the damage on the global environment and enhance the operations’ effectiveness.
Nowadays, the mining industry is going through the continuous investment in technologies and measures that will help to mitigate waste production and enhance the utilization of resources as per the ICMM. Such improvements are not only environment-friendly but also for the sustenance of mining companies in the future.
Mining industries, environmental impact, and possible legislation
Mining produces many different types of waste materials and each come with their own environmental issues. For instance, tailings refer to finely dispersed materials which are left behind after the extraction of metals and minerals. Such materials may include hazardous components which can easily pollute the neighboring environment when not well handled. The recent events that have anticipated the hazards of inadequate disposal of the tailings include the collapse of the tailing dams in Brazil’s Brumadinho in early 2019. In the same way, waste rock, which is typically removed once minerals of value are mined, can contaminate water sources with poisonous chemicals, polluting the environment additionally.
Formerly, the waste that emerged from mining was discharged haphazardly with no consideration to the impact on the environment. But, it is important to note that new technology current innovations are improving the waste management system of the world. One of the significant change is the Dry stack tailings management, which is a process in which the tailings partially are dewatered and stacked in a safe manner so that they do not pose threat similar to the dams. Further, they pointed out that more and more mining companies are implementing the recycling practices, in an effort to extract valuable metals from the waste which were formerly considered as discarded items that can produce income.
Another factor in waste management for mining companies is technological innovation; for instance, mining companies are also deploying sensors in waste disposal with efficiency. Such innovations are currently being practiced by companies such as Barrick Gold thus showing that it is possible to practice sustainable waste management with less focus on the environment and more on the returns of the same.
Promising technologies and innovative practices in waste management
The advancements in mining waste management technology can be directed towards the novel approaches of minimizing the generators of the waste and its effects on the environment. For example, there is an increasingly popular measure called bioremediation that helps to remove mining waste with the help of biological processes: bacteria that are introduced into the water neutralize toxic compounds. Others are efficient water treatment systems for the recovery of water used at the mines, and waste conversion technologies for the generation of energy.
