A guide to leading practice sustainable development in mining

Figure 4.17 – Sunrise Dam TSF
Tailings Minimisation, Recycling and Reuse
In common with the generic waste management hierarchy, mines need firstly reduce
tailings production, and then to recycle and reuse the tailings where possible. The
aim should be for cleaner and more targeted mineral processing that minimises the
production of tailings. Every opportunity for their recycling and reuse should also
be explored. In many instances, tailings have inherent value, through reprocessing
or via other industrial uses. For this reason, the disposal of tailings in a way that
will make tailings recovery or re-treatment uneconomic, or prevent future mining
activities is often actively discouraged. Extreme examples would be underground
and pit backfilling.
Historical gold tailings are the prime example of changing technology providing a
means to make re-processing viable, and this holds true today for a range of other
types of mine tailings.
There is an opportunity to use some tailings for industrial or environmental
purposes, thus reducing the storage requirement. Examples of these are:
the finer portions of fly ash used as a pozzolanic in the manufacture of cements;
power station bottom ash used as inert building fill;
red mud from the alumina industry used as a soil
conditioner and to clean polluted water streams;
power station ash used to fill coal mining voids; and
coal tailings used as a low grade fuel.
Australian alumina operations are applying leading practice in tailings disposal and a
good example is Alcoa’s operations in Western Australia.
118 LEADING PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FOR THE MINING INDUSTRY