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Over the past few years, my attention has turned from overall sustainability matters to how we can reduce the risks of mining wastes. There are many opportunities to create value from wastes, and to alter the way that wastes are managed in order to reduce long-term risks to the environment, as well as to society.
Bringing diverse minds together, and applying innovative solutions, we can find ways to eliminate the potential for catastrophic tailings dam failures.
Read MoreI've always held the belief that mining is really a large-scale exercise in waste management (with the added benefit of gaining value from the ore being extracted!)...as natural ore deposits diminish in concentrations and we are having to dig deeper and deeper to access natural ore bodies, will we find a flipping point where recovery from man-made waste streams will become more economical than extracting from the earth?
I think so, and it will come sooner than we think!
Read MoreThere are two things that could have major impacts on improving the viability of mining projects:
1. Planning, developing and operating projects with the end-use, full closure design in mind (building it to progressively enable closure shortly following the end of operations of a mine), and
2. Flipping evaluation of a potential development on its head - evaluate the worth of the entire property - with value placed on every component of the system - including the overburden and "waste" materials being excavated and moved in order to reach that desired, valued ore. This is monetizing the waste streams that every operation generates - at the front-end planning and assessment phase.
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