Conference Proceedings - World Mining Congress 2026

1014 and operational legacies. This paper has presented a range of technologies to address technical challenges, however, new ways of working are also required. For greenfield opportunities, operations should evaluate technologies to reject waste early and minimize water use, and develop a portfolio of technologies for inclusion during initial mine design and planning. However, capital projects favor risk minimization and leave little to no room for innovation, so this will require a new approach and mindset for derisking of these technologies. Tailings management at legacy and brownfield expansion sites will require a technology portfolio that brings opportunities to increase value and recovery from all of the ore and waste. The challenge lies in achieving economic scale up of promising technologies, and industry collaboration will be key, with sharing of costs, knowledge, and data, ultimately benefitting the entire sector and impacted communities. REFERENCES Gardner, T. (2025, July 24). US prioritizes recovery of critical minerals from mine waste. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/us-prioritizes-recovery-criticalminerals-mine-waste-2025-07-24/ Gleeson, D. (2024, February 27). Sensing an opportunity [press release]. https://minesense.com/preconcentration-ore-sorting-annual-feature/ Hodgson, C. (2026, January 26). Miners turn to bacterial “bugs” to extract copper as prices soar. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/c4bb91b2-ce03-4df6-90e5-68fec5be942b International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). (2022). Tailings Reduction Roadmap [report]. https://www.icmm.com/tailings-reduction-roadmap International Energy Agency (IEA). (2024), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2024, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/global-critical-minerals-outlook-2024 Leonida, C. (2024). Mission-critical control for mining. Engineering and Mining Journal, August 2024. https://www.e-mj.com/features/mission-critical-control-for-mining/ Martens, E., Prommer, H., Sprocati, R., Sun, J., Dai, X., Crane, R., Jamieson, J., Tong, P. O., Rolle, M., & Fourie, A. (2021). Toward a more sustainable mining future with electrokinetic in situ leaching. Science Advances, 7(18). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf9971 Morrill, J., Chambers, D., Emerman, S., Harkinson, R., Kneen, J., Lapointe, U., Maest, A., Milanez, B., Personius, P., Sampat, P., and Turgeon, R. (2022). Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management, Earthworks, MiningWatch Canada and London Mining Network. https://earthworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Safety-First-Safe-Tailings-Management-V2.0final.pdf Oberle, B., Brereton, D., Mihaylova, A. (eds.). (2020). Towards Zero Harm: A Compendium of Papers Prepared for the Global Tailings Review. London: Global Tailings Review. https://globaltailingsreview.org/. Phoenix Tailings. (2025). Phoenix Tailings Selected to Receive $1.6 Million in Federal Funding for Technology to Extract Critical Minerals From Wastewater [press release]. https://phoenixtailings.com/press/phoenix-tailings-selected-to-receive-1-6-million-in-federalfunding-for-technology-to-extract-critical-minerals-from-wastewater

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