Australia’s mining sector could be overlooking a low-risk, high-reward tailings management method that’s been delivering stability and efficiency in other parts of the world for decades.
What if the key to slashing tailings closure costs and winning community trust is to start the work decades before the mine shuts down?
For Justin Walls, Principal Consultant (Tailings Engineering) at SRK Consulting, the best time to plan for tailings storage facility (TSF) closure is now – not when the mine is about to shut down.
If you think tailings facility monitoring is just about choosing between drones, LiDAR, or satellites, think again – the real power lies in combining them.
In one of Australia’s wettest mining regions, a carefully engineered soil cover has proven it can keep both water and oxygen out of acid-forming waste rock - even under two metres of rain a year.
At the AusIMM Life of Mine - Mine Waste and Tailings 2025 conference in Brisbane, Professor Deanna Kemp delivered a keynote address that cut to the core of one of mining’s most pressing and under-examined challenges: how tailings governance is - and isn’t - working when it comes to people.
