Re-Thinking Mining Waste through an Integrative Approach Led by Circular Economy Aspirations

Abstract

Mining wastes, particularly in the form of waste rocks and tailings, can have major social and environmental impacts. There is a need for comprehensive long-term strategies for transforming the mining industry to move toward zero environmental footprint. “How can the mining industry create new economic value, minimise its social and environmental impacts and diminish liability from mining waste?” This would require cross-disciplinary skills, across the social, environmental, technical, legal, regulatory, and economic domains, to produce innovative solutions. The aim of this paper is to review the current knowledge across these domains and integrate them in a new approach for exploiting or “re-thinking” mining wastes. This approach includes five key areas of social dimensions, geoenvironmental aspects, geometallurgy specifications, economic drivers and legal implications for improved environmental outcomes, and circular economy aspirations, which are aligned with the 10 principles of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). Applying circular economy thinking to mining waste presents a major opportunity to reduce the liability and increase the value of waste materials arising from mining and processing operations.

Investigations on Material Composition of Iron-containing Tails of Enrichment of Combined Mining and Processing in Kursk Magnetic Anomaly of Russia

“…Research and calculations which are made by different laboratories in the world, shows us the principal possibility to work off and complex rework ferrous tailings. But we may ascertay that fundamental switching over principles of transiting to the low-waste technologies, which can promote developing minerals fields through technological fields formation, and also development of current technological formations [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Recycled Mineral Raw Materials from Quarry Waste Using Hydrocyclones

“…The decrease in the grade of ore in the mineral deposits, with lower liberation sizes, and the growing demand for mineral products results in increasing tonnage of processed ore in the mineral processing plants at a lower grinding size [1,2]. In most of the unit operations, the efficiency of recovering such fine particles is very low [3].…”

“…The quarrying process creates a great amount of tailings with considerable presence of particles under 100 µm and of a variable mineral composition, along with other components, such as iron oxides or clayey materials, which could limit the application of those wastes. Under the paradigm of a circular economy, several researchers have emphasised the need for rethinking mining wastes and tailings as secondary raw materials [2,4,5].…”

Editorial for Special Issue “Mineral Liberation”

“…The mineral liberation studies are fundamental for mineral processing and metallurgy. Mineral resources are non-renewable, and it is expected that the ore grades available to the mining industry will decrease in the future [1]. Thus, mineral processing must meet sustainability criteria, that is, to recover the greatest amount of materials possible from the resources we have.…”