Now is the Time to Rethink Mine Waste

The world is facing a dilemma.

We need more minerals and metals to power the energy transition. But we don’t need more mine waste.

Globally, mining produces around 100 billion tonnes¹ of solid waste each year. When it’s not well managed it can scar the landscape, damage ecosystems and impact communities. 

To tackle climate change, we need to source critical materials in a way that safeguards communities and the environment. At Regeneration, we believe a solution lies in remining and restoring old and abandoned mines. 

We’re scouting old mines across the world to find sites we can transform into community and ecological assets. We do this by extracting valuable minerals and metals from the waste, addressing impacts, and reinvesting earnings back into restoring the sites, in partnership with Indigenous and neighbouring communities. We’re looking at 70 sites globally, using our successful Salmon Gold project as a model.

Here's why combining remining with restoration makes sense:

1. We need more critical minerals, quickly

According to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy technologies such as solar photovoltaic plants, wind farms and electric vehicles need more minerals to build than their fossil fuel-based counterparts. As an example, a typical electric car requires 6 times the mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant requires 9 times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant². 

Waste from past mining – including tailings, waste rock and waste water – contains metals like cobalt, lithium, copper, platinum and tellurium, essential for renewable energy technologies. By remining waste, we can contribute to a secure and responsible supply of these essential materials.

2. There’s increasing demand for ‘greener’, responsibly made products

Consumers are voting with their wallets, investors are scrutinising companies’ ESG practices and governments are tightening environmental regulations and stepping up reporting requirements. As a result, manufacturers and brands are seeking minerals and metals produced to high ESG standards for their supply chains.

By remining and then restoring old and abandoned mine sites, we’re producing critical and other useful minerals and metals in a way that goes beyond just minimising the environmental impacts of mining – they’re biodiversity and climate positive because they help us address past pollution and restore the sites. 

3. New technologies are helping tackle remining and pollution challenges

X-rays that can scan mine waste and record its properties. Bacteria that can extract valuable minerals from rocks. Plants that absorb soil-based pollutants and improve soil quality. There are many new and emerging technologies being researched and developed globally that will help us remine old sites and address contamination. 

Working with our technology partners, we’ve built a catalogue of proven, emerging and new technologies that we can use to address the specific needs of each mine site. We’re also working with technology developers to trial, verify and validate new technologies on our sites too. By providing test material and sites for research and development, we’re helping accelerate new technologies that may not otherwise get advanced at traditional mining sites. This helps us at our own sites, as well as identifying tools and techniques that can be used to minimise the impacts of mining more broadly.

4. Mining projects can’t progress without community support

Trust – essential to a company’s licence to operate – can make or break a mining project. A 2023 GlobeScan survey showed that across 32 countries, mining was ranked the lowest of all sectors in being trusted to fulfil our responsibilities to society.

Many communities are living with the past impacts of mining, and increasingly community leaders are seeking solutions to these legacy issues before allowing new mines to advance. They want new mine developers to address past problems and support positive restoration outcomes. This is often outside the commercial purpose of mining and re-mining companies. But it’s in Regeneration’s DNA. 

When we’re assessing potential Regeneration sites, we focus first on restoration and positive community outcomes. When we identify a restoration opportunity, we then work together with the community to build a closure vision. With this approach, remining is a means to better community and conservation outcomes.

5. There’s a growing need for nature-based solutions to meet ESG targets

To meet their ESG goals, many companies are looking for nature-based solutions to supplement their decarbonization and broader sustainability efforts.

We document our restoration process, methods and impact, producing quantifiable biodiversity and carbon outcomes that can in some cases be used as credits. Earnings from the sale of biodiversity and carbon credits will help support restoration projects where revenue from remining alone will not cover restoration costs.

And by combining remining and restoration, we’re supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals through contributing to the circular economy, regenerating degraded land and addressing biodiversity loss.

Regeneration’s approach of combining remining with restoration to address legacy mining issues is unique. This makes us an ideal partner for leaders in communities, the mining industry, government, as well as investors. Talk to us about how we can work together.