Mining waste management in Australia is something that some mining companies ignore. Some of the key challenges and major problems facing the contemporary world are the ever-growing populations, shortage of resources and environmental pollution. The mining industry has been gradually developing and mining activities have produced more solid wastes and destroyed the ecosystem. Tailings, waste rock and other solid waste are some of the largest industrial solid waste generated during the exploitation of mineral resources. Comprehensive utilization of waste from mines to compensate shortages in resources and protect the environment will have enormous social and economic benefits.

This is an effective way of solving problems with land occupation, waste discharge, and protecting the environment if solid waste from mines can be treated in new ways such as waste rock reduction, waste reuse, tailings, and waste rock backfill. To manage and protect the mining environment and promote recovery after mining, most investigators abroad and at home do their efforts to study the utilization of predecessors.

Solid waste from mines

Tailing and waste rock, no matter the kind of development program was utilized in a mine, are still the uppermost solid waste in the duration of mineral resource exploitation. The discharging of tailings and waste rock has a large portion of land use and high safety requirements. It also brings destruction to the mine land.

Waste rock

This is one of the maximum solid waste you can find in the mining industry. Proper mining waste management is required since a large amount of rock is excavated and transported to the waste dump in order to extract the ore. When the minerals were exploited by underground mining, waste rocks are rooted in the mine shaft excavation and other development areas.

Production of waste rock is different at different mine sites due to the ore body geometry, development program of the exploitation of the ore, mining capacity of the underground mine and mining method. If in any case a deposit was exploited by open-pit mining, waste rocks are produced in the stripping process. The stripping ratio affects the amount of waste rock greatly. Different mines have a different stripping ratio according to geometry. The amount of waste rock in open-pit mines is more than that of underground mines. This requires more land to be able to store waste rock from mining sites.

Tailings

The process of mineral beneficiation produces a lot of tailings. In order to extract minerals, ore was crushed and then milled into small sizes then the usable minerals were removed from the unusable minerals through various beneficiating methods. With the utilization of mineral resources, the tailings disposal has become a very important factor in the mining industry.

Before implementing mining waste management Australia to handle tailings, it is important to remember that the output of tailings in a mine depends on the ore grade beneficiated in a mineral processing plant. High grade of the ore generally generated fewer tailings. It is important to dispose of the tailings in times to avoid environmental pollution.