Title: A review of sustainable management of mining waste

Authors: Elizabeth Damoah; Sunil Herat

Addresses: University of South Australia, UniSA Business, South Australia 5000, Australia ' School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Queensland 4111, Australia

Abstract: The sustainable management of mining waste continues to be of global concern, and a vital part of this is the associated environmental and social costs. The paper discusses the issue of mine waste management and what constitutes sustainable management. A comprehensive literature review and synthesis of existing mine-waste management practices was undertaken, and results further discussed and analysed with ecological, social, and economic sustainability. The review revealed that sustainable mine-waste management practices are those that apply techniques to reduce and prevent mine waste before its generation; reprocess to further extract valuable materials or recover minerals that may have been previously overlooked; downcycle remnant bulk material for a low purpose; and responsibly treat and dispose of after all possible uses for the materials have been considered. Poor mine waste management has ecological, social, and economic implications with rippling effects on ecological and human systems lingering on for many generations.

Keywords: mining sustainability; mine-waste generation; mine-waste management practices; mine-waste review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2022.122684

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2022 Vol.29 No.3, pp.342 - 359

Received: 27 Aug 2019
Accepted: 08 Jun 2020
Published online: 05 May 2022 *

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