Waste and tailings

We manage waste in line with ICMM Mining Principle 8 – Responsible Production, and apply the mitigation hierarchy as part of our approach. This hierarchy prioritises waste prevention, followed by minimisation, reuse, recycling, energy recovery and disposal.

We strengthened our approach to managing waste by adding new performance requirements to our internal environment standard. These requirements are designed so that our operations become even more effective at classifying, quantifying, managing and disposing of waste.

Our new performance requirements call on all operations that are exposed to waste-related risks to:

• Improve the way they identify, assess, quantify and report the risks and opportunities associated with all their waste streams, using a waste register;
• Implement effective procedures and controls to handle, segregate, store, transport and dispose of their waste;
• Keep a record of all waste that is moved off-site for disposal, so that this is done in line with local laws and internal requirements; and
• Implement governance processes (risk-based) to verify the treatment, handling and disposal of waste is being undertaken in accordance with local laws and internal requirements.

To support our new performance requirements, during FY21 we developed a five-step waste reduction methodology to help our operations identify value-based opportunities in their waste streams. This supports our aspiration to continue to reduce and design our waste in line with the circular economy principles.

Our internal Dam Management Standard requires that tailings are deposited as ‘dense and dry as possible’ to increase their stability and safety. We achieve this by using several different tailings disposal techniques to remove water from, and compact, the tailings material. These techniques include dry stacking, amphirolling, water recycling and the permitted discharge of excess water.

Our approach to tailings management is consistent with the ICMM Tailings Governance Framework and Position Statement on Preventing Catastrophic Failure of Tailings Storage Facilities, as well as the Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) guidelines.

These requirements are embedded in our internal dam management standard. Tailings are our highest volume waste stream and managing them requires a multi-faceted approach.

This involves understanding more about the physical properties of specific tailings, reducing water contact at TSFs, and developing innovative construction techniques for these facilities. We are implementing the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) to improve our management, governance and disclosure.

We have 27 TSFs located across both our owned and operated sites and those that we operate on behalf of joint venture partners. Sixteen of these TSFs are active, 10 are inactive, and one is closed. Our joint venture partners operate 32 TSFs.

You can read more about our TSFS in the 2021 Directory of Tailings Storage Facilities which provides a directory of our TSFs across our sites, and the TSFs of our non-operated interests.

The nature of our mining and processing activities can result in gaseous air emissions, noise, effluents and contamination. We actively manage these and prevent and minimise any impact on neighbouring communities and the environment, in line with our strategy.

Learn about our carbon emissions and our response to climate change here.