Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
DOI 10.1007/s11157-008-9142-y
REVIEW PAPER
Sustainability in metal mining: from exploration, over
processing to mine waste management
Bernhard Dold
Published online: 27 September 2008
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract Metal mining or more general mineral
mining, is the base industry of the economic wealth
and development of numerous countries. However,
mining has a negative reputation due to the complex
problems of environmental contamination like SO2
and CO2 emissions and acid mine drainage (AMD)
formation, which endangers vital limited resources,
like air, water, and soils. This view paper highlights
the environmental problems of todays metal mining
operations and explores possibilities of future more
sustainable mining operations with focus on
enhanced and optimized metal recovery systems in
combination with a minimization of the environmen-
tal impact. These changes depend on a change in
mentality and in the mining operation process, which
can nowadays yet be observed in some modern
mining operations. The goal for the future will be to
implement these changes as standard for all future
mining operations.
Keywords Acid mine drainage
Biomining

Tailings
Pollution
Sulfides
Sulfates
Sustainable

Prevention
Treatment
Remediation
Environment
B. Dold (&)
Instituto de Geologa Economica Aplicada (GEA),
Universidad de Concepcion, Victor Lamas 1290, 4070386
Concepcion, Chile
e-mail: bdold@udec.cl
1 Introduction
Metal production and the associated search for new
metal resources has experienced an enormous boost
in the last years due to the rising demands for metals
from developing countries like China and India. The
future perspective for metal production is very
promising and is expected to maintain a high level.
It is also expected that metal prices continue to stay
high, as the demand will increase, while new
discoveries of metal deposits will decrease. However,
nowadays not only does the economic gain of metal
production has to be considered for the development
of a mining project, but also the environmental
impact of the mining activities has to be evaluated
before, during and after operation. This has to be seen
especially in the context of socio-economic pressures
toward the mining industry for a more sustainable and
clean metal production. While industrialized coun-
tries started to formulate environmental reports and to
implement environmental framework laws in the
1970s (e.g., USA, Central Europe, Japan), developing
countries only recently in the 1990s started this
process (e.g., Chile, Peru, Korea, Nigeria), as
reported in Janicke and Weidner (1997). In Europe,
due to two severe mining accidents in Spain
(Aznalcollar 25.04.1998; Grimalt et al. 1999; Do-
menech et al. 2002) and in Romania (Baia Mare
30.01.2000; Korte et al. 2000; Wehland et al. 2002)
the European Commission decided to implement new
directives in 2006 (Directive 2006/21/EC of the
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European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March
2006) on the management of waste from extractive
industries including mine waste (and amending
Directive 2004/35/EC; http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUri
Serv/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:102:0015:01:EN:
HTML). In addition to these important activities,
more efforts should also focus on the formation of
experts in this area (specialized Master and Ph.D.
Programs), which will be able to apply these new laws
and directives in the different countries. At the moment
there are only a few programs specialized in these
issues (e.g. www.udec.cl/postgrado; www.unia.es).
On the one hand, mining activity is the basic
industry for technological development, while con-
versely, contamination and environmental impact
often makes the mining a very negative reputation
in society. There is no doubt however that mining
was and will continue to be crucial for the develop-
ment of human societies. The main environmental
problem of mining activity is the contamination of
other vital resources, like water, soils and air.
According to the United States Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (EPA), water contamination from
mining is one of the top three ecological-security
threats in the world. In fact, the competition for water
use, especially between agricultural and mining in
areas with scarce water resources is very pronounced,
as for example in the Atacama desert of Chile and in
Peru. There is an endless list of very promising and
economically interesting mining projects, which were
not able to enter into production or had to stop
production due to the opposition of local communi-
ties and environmental problems.
Mining is a complex activity, which involves
numerous different professionals from exploration
geologists to find an ore deposit, to mine and
metallurgical engineers in the mineral extraction
process to the marketing by economist and lawyers.
The environmental impact is usually addressed in the
final deposition of the waste material to monitor or
mitigate the impact. Generally, these different profes-
sional groups do not interact strongly along the mining
process. However, in order to prevent uncontrolled
element release from mine waste, all parties involved
in the process will have to work hand in hand from the
exploration through the mineral extraction process
towards the final deposition in order to exploit more
efficiently the whole metal potential of an orebody and
minimize the environmental impact.
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Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the actual
situation in metal production and the associated
environmental problems (mainly using copper mining
as an example) and analyze trends for future changes
in the metal production process with focus on
increasing and optimizing metal recovery combined
with a minimization of environmental impact, i.e.
more sustainable mining operations.
2 Ancient mining processes and current metal
production and its environmental problems
An ore deposit is a natural enrichment of a certain
element of economic interest in the earths crust,
which is present in a mineralogical form, able to be
recovered by state-of-the-art techniques available at
the moment of mining (Table 1).
In the first human mining operations, mainly high-
grade ore deposits (e.g. vein deposits) from oxide
ores at the earth surface were mined. These deposits
were easy to find and exploit, as they were exposed at
the surface and the metals were easy to recover using
the first metallurgical processes of our ancestors. This
is due to the advanced weathering processes in an
oxide ore, which liberated the metals from the sulfide
mineralogy by oxidation, the same processes, which
occurs today in mine wastes. However, in the
formation of an oxide ore (gossan), the kinetics of
these processes are slower due to the compactness of
the rock to be oxidized, so that the release of toxic
elements to the environment has to be considered to
be slower and therefore less toxic for the environment
compared to the fast release from current crushed
waste material. As the oxide ores became more and
more scarce and could not satisfy the increasing
demand of metals during the industrialization, the
exploration of sulfide ore deposits started. The
breakthrough for this mineral deposit type was due
to the development of the flotation technique in the
late 19th and early 20th century (18601905), which
allowed the separation of the metal sulfide minerals
from the gangue mineralogy. This technique enabled
to selectively float a mineral of economic interest
(e.g. chalcopyrite), by making the surface of the
mineral hydrophobic, which then floats by the
introduction of air bubbles. Other sulfide minerals
without economic interest can be suppressed from
flotation by pH adjustment (e.g. alkaline circuit), as is
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Table 1 Average concentrations of metals in the earths crust with average concentrations exploited by mining and enrichment
factors
Metal Crust (wt.%) By mineral Enrichment factor In mine tailings Enrichment
exploitation (wt.%) factor tailings

Cu 0.005 0.4 80 0.10.3 2060

Ni 0.007 0.5 71 0.2 28.4
Zn 0.007 4 571 24 275571
Mn 0.09 35 389
Sb 0.0002 0.5 2500
Cr 0.01 30 3000
Pb 0.001 4 4000 12 10002000
Au 0.0000004 0.0001 250
Some concentrations of elements still present in mine tailings are shown to highlight the still strong enrichment of these elements in
the waste material. Modified after (Evans 1993)
= Average

generally the case for pyrite (FeS2), which is the most
frequent accessory mineral in sulfide ore deposits.
Due to this selective flotation, the none economic
part, which represents, in case of copper ores, about
99% and in case of gold deposits 99.99% of the
treated material is classified as waste and in the
particular case of flotation is named tailings. These
mine tailings are usually deposited in constructed
tailings impoundments or natural depressions like
lakes or lagoons, as well into the sea for final
deposition (Fig. 1). Although this material has no
economic metal concentrations at the moment of
mining, it still represents a strong enrichment of these
metals in relation to the earths crust (Table 1) and
contains other sulfide minerals like pyrite, arsenopy-
rite (FeAsS), enargite (Cu3AsS4), galena (PbS),
sphalerite (ZnS), which can be the source for a
future uncontrolled metal liberation. Modern tailings
impoundments from Cu mines average about
0.1 wt.% Cu (Smuda et al. 2008), whereas older
tailings material can still contain concentrations
between 0.2 and 0.6 wt.% Cu (Dold and Fontbote
2001; Dold 2006a). The problem of sulfide mine
waste material is its uncontrolled exposure to
oxidizing conditions at the earths surface during
the mining process. Sulfide minerals like pyrite were
formed under reducing conditions in the earths crust.
Once exposed to oxidizing conditions at the surface
they are no longer stable and undergo oxidation with
the formation of sulfuric acid (Eq. 1) and the
liberation of heavy metals and other toxic elements
like arsenic to the environment. Equation 1 describes
the initial step of pyrite oxidation, when this material
is exposed for example to atmospheric oxygen at the

Fig. 1 The reality of mine waste management in many of the future a controlled collection and recovery of metal loaded
todays operating mine sites. The hydrogeological system is not solution. No or only limited classification of the deposited
or only limitly known. The waste-dumps and the tailings material is available
impoundments have no sealed basement, which could permit in

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surface of a tailings impoundment. Once ferric iron is
produced by oxidation of ferrous iron (Eq. 2),
oxidation which may be, especially at low pH
conditions, strongly accelerated by microbiological
activity, ferric iron will be the primary oxidant
(Eq. 3) of pyrite (Nordstrom 1982; Moses et al. 1987;
Ehrlich 1996).
FeS2 7=2O2 H2 O ! Fe2 2SO2
4 2H 1
2 3 Mining history has shown that 30 years ago it was not
Fe 1=4O2 H , Fe 1=2H2 O 2
reaction rates strongly increased at low pH (\4) by
microbial activity (e.g., Acidithiobacillus spp.,
Leptospirillum spp.)
FeS2 14Fe3 8H2 O ! 15Fe2 2SO2 average concentration in the earths crust, and the
4 16H
3
Due to the acidic conditions established during
these processes, most of the heavy metals are mobile
and can pollute surface and groundwater resources, a
phenomena better known as acid mine drainage
(AMD). For example, in the case of the marine shore
tailings deposit in the Bay of Chanaral, Chile, which
was classified by the United Nations Environmental
Program (UNEP) in 1983 as one of the most serious
cases of marine contaminations in the Pacific area,
highlights the situation well. During the deposition of
the tailings in the period 19381975, which origi-
nated from the Potrerillos-El Savador porphyry
copper mining district, the recovery was lower than
in todays operations. Therefore, the deposited mate-
rial still contains about 0.3 wt.% Cu (Dold 2006a).
With the current high copper prices, together with the
fact that the material is crushed and milled (what
represents 30% of the operating costs of mining), it is
considered as potential resource material and is
actually explored for its potential exploitation. Thus,
re-treatment of many old mine wastes can be a first-
choice option for remediation of an old mine site,
which enables to relocate the material, reprocess and
deposit it in a save and final way.
The complexity of defining if a material is
classified waste or ore in a mine site is highlighted
by the following example. At the moment there are
still very rich copper mines (12 wt.% Cu), which
have a cut off ore grade of around 0.6 wt.% Cu (i.e.
material with less of 0.6 wt.% is not considered as
ore), while other less rich porphyry copper mines
operate very successfully with a total ore grade of
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Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
0.60.7 wt.% Cu. Exploration for new discoveries
targets at the moment even ore bodies with 0.4 wt.%
Cu. Therefore, the decision if a certain material is
classified as waste-material or ore depends on many
factors including the actual metal price during
mining, ore grade of the deposit, personal decisions
of the management, local priorities, technique avail-
able, complexity of the ore mineralogy, geo-
metallurgical behavior of the ore and recovery, etc.
possible to imagine that material with 0.5 wt.% Cu
might be a feasible ore grade for economic mining
operation. Therefore, as long as the treated material
in a mine has some higher metal concentrations as the
metal concentrations are in a mineralogical form,
which is exploitable, it might be of interest for future
generations for metal recovery (considering that also
in the future there will be an improvement in
extraction technologies).
Once the material is classified as waste, it is taken
out of the production flow and its final deposition
makes it very difficult to reintegrate into the produc-
tive process. One of the major problems, past and
current, is the deposition of the sulfides containing
material without any security measurements to prevent
the infiltration of contaminated solutions in the ground
and surface waters. Therefore, this uncontrolled past
deposition of the waste material together with old mine
galleries and fractured rock units due to the use of
explosive during exploitation, are nowadays the prin-
cipal source of water contamination by the formation
of acid mine drainage. To remediate these ancient
mine sites, enormous financial costs have to be
incurred on a long-term scenario. For example, the
German taxpayers spent 6.6 billion since the re-
unification in 1989 for the remediation of the Wismut
uranium mining area in the former East-Germany (
www.wismut.de). The costs for remediation of mine
waste in the United States and Canada are estimated to
be between 1 and 2 billion US$ per year. In Chile,
there are more than 1,000 registered tailings
impoundments (Ingeneria y Geotecnia LTDA 1990),
in Peru a similar amount can be assumed and most of
them still have to be remediated. In light of these sums,
a prevention of these future costs is crucial for a sus-
tainable mining operation.
Today, in many mines, there are on-going studies
to implement in-situ leaching of waste material with
Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
interesting metal concentrations (e.g. tailings with
0.3 wt.% Cu), due to the increase in metal prices and
also this technique has the lowest operation cost (du
Plessis et al. 2007). Unfortunately, this is often done
without impermeable basements and without the
exact knowledge of the flow path of the pregnant
liquor solution (PLS), which can represent a high risk
for ground and surface waters.
3 Lessons learned
Solubilization of heavy metals in acidic environment
by biogeochemical processes is not only an envi-
ronmental problem during the formation of acid
mine drainage (Dold and Fontbote 2001; Dold et al.
2005; Diaby et al. 2007). It is a natural process
(Schwertmann et al. 1995), which occurs always
where sulfide minerals are exposed to oxidizing
conditions through for example erosion processes.
Nowadays, mankind uses the same biogeochemical
processes for metal recovery by bioleaching in heap
or reactor leach operation (Schippers et al. 2007;
Demergasso et al. 2005; Donati and Sand 2007;
Rawlings and Johnson 2007). The crucial role of
microbial interaction in sulfide oxidation was rec-
ognized long ago (Colmer and Hinkle 1947) and is
now well accepted and more and increasingly
applied in heap leaching operations (Johnson and
Hallberg 2003; Rawlings and Johnson 2007). More
recently, new studies suggest that these processes are
and were also involved in the formation of super-
gene and Exotic ore deposits (Southam and Saunders
2006) like Exotica/Chuquicamata, Chile (Dold 2003;
Dold 2006b). Therefore, the same biogeochemical
processes formed in one case an ore deposit, and in
another case is used as a very effective metal
benefaction process, but if occurring uncontrolled in
mine waste, responsible for an enormous environ-
mental problem (Fig. 2).
The main difference is the timeframe, which these
three different systems (biomining, AMD formation,
and supergene ore formation) have to complete their
task. In case of a reactor or heap leach operation we
give the system several days, weeks or months for the
leaching process, whereas mine wastes still generate
acid mine drainage after decades or centuries after
deposition, and in the supergene ore formation it is
thought that the process took thousands up to millions
279
A) Exotic Deposit Supergene enriched Deposit
Leached zone
Oxidation zone
Enriched zone
Primary zone
Mineralized Bedrock
irrigation
B)
oxidation zone
PLS
C) oxidation zone
AMD
Fig. 2 Schematic presentation of the three systems where
biogeochemical sulfide oxidation initiate metal mobilization:
(a) supergene ore formation with the formation of an lateral
exotic deposit as sink for the acid metal-rich solutions
originating from the oxidation zone of the Chuquicamata
porphyry copper ore deposit, Chile as example, after Munch-
meyer (1996), (b) bioleaching operation with the controlled
recovery of pregnant liquor solution (PLS) and recovery of the
metals by solvent extraction SX/electrowinning EW, and (c)
uncontrolled acid mine drainage (AMD) formation from mine
waste with surface and groundwater as sink for the liberated
elements
of years (Mote et al. 2001a; Dold 2003). Addition-
ally, by crushing and milling the material to obtain a
better recovery during flotation, we also increase the
surface of the material and therefore the kinetics of
sulfide oxidation after deposition. Thus, the natural
attenuation of the ecosystems, where the material is
deposited is not able to control this enhanced metal
release in this short time frame.
Another problem in the environmental manage-
ment of mining activities is the application of action
levels for certain element for water standards. In the
past, many developing countries applied the practice
to copy certain standards from the northern hemi-
sphere. A good example is the 10 lg/l for arsenic as
guidelines from the WHO for drinking water stan-
dards. This is correct and important from the human
health perspective if water is effectively used for
drinking water purpose. However, for example in the
Andes, many rivers have natural background con-
centrations between 500 and 1,400 lg/l arsenic (e.g.
Locumba river southern Peru (Diaby et al. 2006) or
Loa river northern Chile (Romero et al. 2003).
Therefore, the action levels for water quality control
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associated to the mining activity have to be adapted
to the local realities of the natural background. This is
now a primordial issue for current new mining
operation to establish the local baseline levels of the
different elements in the future mining district. This
was unfortunately completely ignored in the past,
which thus makes it very difficult or impossible to
evaluate in many cases the natural background
contamination in ancient mining areas and the impact
of the mining operation. Currently, there are different
approaches used in an intent to establish the pre-
mining baseline levels, as for example the extrapo-
lation of baseline values from catchments in the near
vicinity of the mining operation (Kelley and Taylor
1997; Runkel et al. 2007).
In the 40s and 50s the first visible effects from
sulfide and coal mining were reported and the
importance of microbial interactions in the formation
of acid mine drainage was shown (Colmer and Hinkle
1947). In the last few years, the first long-term results
from the first remediation approaches of mine waste
were published, showing that many were not suc-
cessful (Holmstrom and Ohlander 1999). Most of the
remediation strategies applied today, try to prevent
the infiltration of water and oxygen into the mine
waste in order to prevent oxidation and contamina-
tion of the water resources. However, more and more
long-term results show that oxidation cannot be
prevented completely by geotechnical covers and wet
cover systems e.g. (Holmstrom et al. 2001), they only
slow down the process. Thus, the question for a long-
term strategy remains if cover systems are the right
choice or if geochemical strategies of retention
processes might be more successful in the long-term
control of metal mobility. If we observe nature, we
see that in the unsaturated oxidation and weathering
zone of ore deposits (Brimhall et al. 1985; Mote et al.
2001b) or soils (Giesler et al. 2000; van Hees et al.
2002), massive rock units were altered and oxidized
with time (Munchmeyer 1996), resulting in a strong
mobilization of the elements by biogeochemical
processes. It is only a question of time and whether
the system has enough capacity to dilute the element
liberated to a level that it is non-toxic to the
surrounding ecosystems. The belief, that with a few
centimeters or even meters of cover and geo-textile
membranes oxygen could be prevented to follow its
natural instinct to oxidize anything what can be
oxidized in a long-term scenario, is not very realistic.
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Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
At the moment it is planed that a sustainable long-
term solution has to last in the range of at least
1,000 years in the new EU Directive on the manage-
ment of waste from the extractive industries.
Therefore, an approach, which does not intend to
prevent oxidation, but rather promote oxidation in a
controlled way, on long-term time scales, might be a
more successful strategy for sulfidic waste. Only if it
can be ensured that the sulfide-bearing material is re-
deposited into permanent reducing conditions without
oxidation during the exploitation process (e.g. back-
filling below the groundwater level), oxidation can be
prevented. In case that oxidation cannot be prevented,
the implementation of geochemical barriers and traps,
often observed in natural attenuation, can help to
mitigate the environmental impact of AMD.
4 Sustainability in mining
Mining is and will always be a destructive activity
with a high environmental impact. Therefore, a
sustainable mining approach can only have the goal
to optimize the metal extraction from the ore, which
by itself means to increase the financial benefits, in
combination with the minimization of the environ-
mental impact, and also minimizes remediation costs.
Mining history has shown, that material which was
regarded as waste in the past, can today be a
profitable resource due to improvement of extraction
techniques and changes in the economic environ-
ment. Therefore, with this lesson in mind, any
material of a mining area should be considered in a
long-term vision as part of the ore deposit, as long as
it represents an enrichment of the metals relative to
the average concentration in the earths crust.
4.1 Exploration
The decision as to what kind of ore deposit is
explored and if it can be exploited from an economic
and an environmental point of view starts with the
exploration of the ore deposit type. There are some
ore deposits types, which have higher tendency to
produce negative environmental impacts like acid
mine drainage than other deposits (Plumlee 1999).
Massive, pyrite-rich ore bodies like those present in
the Iberian Pyrite Belt of Spain (Navarro et al. 1993;
Braungardt et al. 2003; Galan et al. 2003; Sanchez
Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
Espana et al. 2005) or in Cerro de Pasco, Peru
(Smuda et al. 2007; Dold et al. 2008) represent a high
environmental risk due to the enormous amount of
pyrite and the presence of other hazardous elements
like arsenic. There are many examples of economi-
cally feasible ore deposits, which did not enter into
operation due to the presence of high concentrations
of arsenic or other toxic elements, especially those,
which form oxyanions in solution and are therefore
mobile under neutral pH conditions (e.g. As, Mo, Cr,
Se). This limitation of exploitation due to environ-
mental concerns occurs mainly in more developed
societies (e.g. Europe, Northern America, Australia),
which do not depend wholly on the exploitation of
their primary resources. In developing countries, the
dependence of income from primary resources like
the mineral industry is very high and downgrade
environmental problems to a secondary priority.
However, future exploration research should take
this problem into account and focus on exploration
pattern search for so called clean ores, which have results in a more complete reaction of all agents (acid
better chance to be developed and have lower
environmental costs.
4.2 Exploitation
Once an ore deposit is found and is planed to start
operation, it is crucial to perform, beside the oblig-
atory environmental impact study, a detailed baseline
study of the natural pre-mining conditions. This has
to include an evaluation of the speciation of the
element, in order to address the potential mobility of
the elements to the environment, as well a detailed
knowledge of the hydrogeological system in which
mining will take place and in the areas of the
potential waste or operation facilities. Ore deposits
are natural enrichment zones of elements and there-
fore the natural background levels in soils and water
in these areas are also in general higher than
elsewhere. Thus, the legal exigencies for the lower
permitted concentrations of the elements have to be
adapted to the local natural situation.
In order to increase the metal recovery of the total
metal mass present in the ore and to minimize the
elements, which can escape uncontrolled during the
mining operation, a detailed classification of all rock
units in the mining area should be performed. This
classification of the rock-units should include metal
concentrations (not only the economic elements, but
281
also the hazardous), their speciation (mineralogical
phases they are associated with) and the potential to
produce acidity or neutralize acidity (acid-base
accounting; ABA), in combination with tests to
predict the kinetics of element release. Classification
into ore, low-grade ore and very low-grade ore can
promote the formation of end-products which can be
treated upon their mineralogical composition and
predicted kinetics of element liberation by the
optimized combination of benefaction processes.
The choice of which combination of benefaction
processes will perform best has to be evaluated in
each specific case separately.
For example waste-rock produces fast acid solu-
tion (Stromberg and Banwart 1994; Ritchie 1994;
Smuda et al. 2007), whereas tailings may need
decades or centuries before producing AMD (Dold
et al. 2005). This difference is mainly due to the
permeability for water and air in combination with
the particle surface area, which in case of the tailings
producing as well as neutralizing minerals). In
contrast, waste-rock where the fast access of oxygen
and water ensures a fast sulfide oxidation, but due to
the presence of big boulders, in which an important
part of the reagents can be protected from oxidation,
the reactions cannot be completed. Blending of
crushed, very low-grade waste-rock material (e.g.
0.10.4 wt.% Cu) with tailings (0.1 wt.% Cu) could
increase the permeability so that the tailings could be
leached more efficiently and faster than in a tradi-
tional tailings impoundment and the Cu will be also
better liberated in the crushed waste-rock.
4.3 Benefaction processes
The choice of the benefaction process in a mining
operation depends upon parameters like mineralogy,
climate, economic considerations, infrastructure, etc.,
and has to be evaluated in each case specifically. It is
clear that in a mining operation, the main part of the
gain is needed at the moment of operation in order to
compensate for the enormous amounts of investments
needed for the mining activity (Fig. 3).
Therefore, there will always be a combination of
processes, which permit a fast and efficient concen-
tration of the main ore minerals from the high-grade
ore (e.g. flotation, magnetic separation, etc. and
smelting), and slower processes for low-grade ores
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A)
B)
Fig. 3 (a) In a sustainable mining operation, no material is
exposed without control of the material deposited and possible
element flows. The material is classified, registered, and
extracted in order to optimize the economic gain for the
mining company during operation and to ensure that the low
and very low-grade material is managed in terms of kinetics
needed for the metal recovery. The great difference in this
scenery is that future generations will not receive an extremely
expensive environmental problem as heritage, but a system,
such as in heap leach operation (0.40.7 wt.% Cu), as
is practiced at the Escondida mine, Chile (Domic
2007). If the very low-grade flotation tailings
(0.1 wt.% Cu) together with other very-low grade
material from the ore (0.10.4 wt.% Cu) can be
blended, this could produce a material, which can be
deposited and processed with slower reaction rates. If
these operations are constructed to recover the PLS
and to prevent infiltrations of any PLS to the
groundwater, these operations can bring economic
benefit to future generations instead of high remedi-
ation cost (Fig. 3). This procedure would make the
waste material with 0.10.4 wt.% Cu, which still be effectively oxidized at the moment by thermophile
represents an enrichment factor of 2080 (Table 1)
accessible as metal source, instead of being classified
and deposited as waste.
The importance of geomicrobiology in the process
of sulfide oxidation (Banfield and Nealson 1997;
Nordstrom and Southam 1997) and the formation of
acid mine drainage (Schrenk et al. 1998; Baker and
Banfield 2003) has been reviewed extensively
(Donati and Sand 2007). The knowledge of micro-
organisms in bioleaching (Schippers 2007) and
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Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
which will deliver slow but sure net gains in the future.
Therefore, in the planning and operation a complete interdis-
ciplinary approach from exploration, economic planning,
exploitation and metal recovery process toward to final
deposition of the materials has to be applied. (b) Simplified
schematic view of the financial outcome and investment costs
of a sustainable mining operation associated to the different ore
grades in a mining operation versus time
biochemical mechanisms in sulfide oxidation (Roh-
werder and Sand 2007) have shown an important
improvement in the last decades.
There are also important efforts to promote
biomining, as for example through the Integrated
Project of the 6th Framework Program of the EC
BioMine www.biomine.brgm.fr and to understand
the genome of bacteria present in sulfide oxidation
environments (Holmes and Bonnefoy 2007) in order
to optimize biomining operations and to oxidize more
resistant sulfide minerals like chalcopyrite (du Plessis
et al. 2007; Plumb et al. 2007). Chalcopyrite can only
bacteria at elevated temperatures in heap and reactor
leach operation (Plumb et al. 2007). However, the
goal is to efficiently leach chalcopyrite with a con-
sortia of mesophilic bacteria in industrial mining
operations. This would upgrade biomining as the
future benefaction technology due to lower energy
and maintenance costs and less environmental impact
(no uncontrolled SO2 and CO2 emissions to the
atmosphere and controlled collection and treatment
of acid metal loaded solutions).
Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2008) 7:275285
4.4 Final waste management
Once the complete acid potential of the sulfide
mineralogy is liberated and the metal release is
completed, a final conditioning of the material can
bring the surface back to a final land use. However,
depending on the mineralogy of the final waste
material in combination with the climatic conditions
an evaluation of the risk of further element release has
to be performed. For example if arsenic or other
elements present in form of oxyanions are associated
to secondary Fe(III) hydroxides, the material should be
maintained in oxic condition. In contrast, there would
be a risk of release of these elements due to reductive
dissolution of the host minerals (e.g. schwertmannite
or jarosite), if a standard cover would be implemented.
In this case an inert gravel cover would prevent eolic
transport and would ensure the oxic conditions.
In any mining process, there will be always a
certain amount of waste material which has to be
deposited as final waste and will have to be confined
in special sealed waste disposal areas. The goal here
must always be to minimize the size of this waste in
order to minimize the final disposal costs.
5 Conclusions
Sulfide metal and coal mining has produced in the
last century enormous amounts of waste material that
resulted in severe environmental problems. The
remediation of mining sites costs society great sums
of taxpayer money. The past knowledge of the effects
of uncontrolled waste disposal from metal mining
must lead to a change in mentality towards preven-
tion of uncontrolled metal release to the environment.
A key for future sustainable mining activities will be
that all parties involved in the mining process
(Industry, governmental agency (e.g. EPA, ministries,
geological surveys), stakeholder) have the knowledge
about the geochemical processes leading to these
problems and the best-available techniques to control
these systems. It is important that each party accepts
that every mining site is unique and that there cannot
be a world-wide recipe to handle these problems.
The greater knowledge in the understanding of
biogeochemical processes leading to sulfide oxidation
and subsequent formation of acid mine drainage and
supergene ore formation, is more and more applied
283
for bioleaching operations for low-grade ore material.
The application of these principles to very low-grade
material will be a major challenge in big mining
operations with an enormous potential in the indus-
trial application. This will give the possibility to
improve the economic outcome of an ore deposit on
the long-term perspective by extracting the complete
metal content and prevent the uncontrolled release of
contaminants to the environment, i.e. the sustainable
mining approach has a double positive effect.
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