Best Available Techniques Management of Tailing

and Waste-rock in Mining Activities

Presenters
Andhy Noor Aprila
Nurman Ramadhan
Ezgi C.S. Kreci

Important subject
To raise the awareness of Best Available Techniques (BAT) practice to the
environment and promote their uses across management of tailing and waste-rock in
mining activities.

Current status
Environmental awareness has been upgraded in the mining industry over the last
decades. A significant improvement has been improved concerning the legislative,
approving requirement and control. Nowadays, the entire cycle of mines and mining
closure are scheduled and provided in an environmentally acceptable way, even before
opening the mine.

Environmental effects
Emission emitted from the tailing and waste-rock management facilities which can be
acidic or alkaline reagents and dissolve metals that may be toxic to animal, plant and also
human. For example if the tailings or waste rocks produce acid rock drainage that can
cause several effect to environment such as

Acidity harms and destroys vegetation

Accumulation of Fe and sulfates at the surface creates a crust preventing root

penetration

Due to acid pH there is loss of nutrients that makes plants perish.

Heavy metals go in dissolution affecting fauna & flora

Dust emission is also very dangerous for human health if it contains heavy metals that
can be toxic to human. For instance arsenic, cadmium, chromium and mercury can be
poisonous to human in varying degree of concentration.

Precaution on this manner

There are several methods of BAT that are most common used, such as

discarding slurries into ponds,

dry-stacking of thickened tailing,

discarding tailing into surface water

using the tailing damp and waste-rock as a product of land use

dumping less or more dry tailing or waste rock onto heaps or hill sides

backfilling tailing into underground and open pit or using to construct tailing
damp

Emission prevention and controlling

In acid rock drainage management, there are a number of prevention, control, and
treatment such as covers, addition of buffering minerals, and active or passive
treatment.

Reagent consumption can be reduced by computer-based monitoring of feed

quality, or by operational strategies to minimize cyanide addition and pre-sorting
of the feed to the mineral processing plant.

Water erosion can be prevented by covering the slopes or encourage particle

binding. Dust can be prevented by keeping beaches in tailings ponds and other
slopes wet.

Noise emission can be reduced by shielding the dumping operation from housing
area with noise barriers.

Emission to water can be prevented by reusing the process water to avoid the
effluents turn out to acidic or alkaline, they may contain suspended soils,
dissolved components or metal.

Accident prevention

Collapse of tailing dams or waste-rock heap can be prevented by choosing the best
possible site of tailing dam and suitable nearby pit, in other word good dam or heap
stability is needed. Collapse of tailing dams or waste-rock heap can also be prevented by
make good selection of dam construction material that should fit for the purpose and not
weaken under operational or climate condition. Overflow can be anticipated by creating
the beach of tailing surrounding the main tailing dam to anticipate if the volume of tailing
increase caused by addition of water from the rain, this technique usually apply in high
rainfall areas. Another technique to prevent overflow is to construct or raise tailing dams
with corresponding to compaction of suitable construction materials to ensure long term
stability.