Alternative Use of Tailings and Waste
Applying Circular Economy Principles to Turn Tailings and Mine Waste into Business and Social Opportunities
The Challenge
The extraction and processing of minerals generate significant volumes of tailings and waste rock. MRIWA is working to enable scientific advances and technology development to reduce the scale and impact of these waste materials in Western Australia.
Context
The mining sector in Western Australia faces significant and growing challenges in managing tailings and other residual materials produced by the mining process.
MRIWA is working to support the development of novel technologies and insights aligned to more effective management of these waste streams, including the extraction of additional value products from historic and future mine waste the beneficiation and re-use of bulk mined materials, and the adoption of accelerated mineral carbonation technology that could re-cast mine waste as a key resource in an emissions-constrained economic future.
MRIWA aims to deliver cost-effective benefits through this focus area including offsetting raw material requirements for state construction and infrastructure needs, reducing the carbon footprint associated with industrial resources, and reducing the volumes of waste and related environmental impacts left for the minerals industry to rehabilitate, all while delivering social benefits to the state including job creation, enhanced, manufacturing self-sufficiency and opportunities for regional growth.
Work under the Alternative Use of Tailings and Waste focus area includes support for research into Accelerated Mineral Carbonation, and commitments to action under the Western Australian Government’s Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Action Plan and the Roadmap to Decarbonise WA through Integrated Mineral Carbonation.
Get involved
Accelerated Mineral Carbonation Coordinator
Principal Project Officer
Email: zafu.teferi@mriwa.wa.gov.au
Phone: 618 6180 4348
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Accelerated Mineral Carbonation Research Program
MRIWA has a dedicated funding program to address the challenge of permanently capturing CO2 using mineral carbonation.
Current Activities:
- M10617 – Evaluating the Potential of Mine Waste for Construction Solutions
- M10607 – Use of Delithiated Beta Spodumene (DBS) manufactured sands in roads – Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment
- M10501 – Algae-based technologies for improved environmental outcomes and sustainable post-mining futures
- M10487 – Accelerating Consolidation of Mine Tailings using Electro‐osmosis Dewatering Technology (MRIWA PhD Scholarship)
- M10458 – Mine Pit Lake Assessment and Management: A National Initiative to Support Mine Closure and Regional Opportunities
- M10408 – Integrating field monitoring and numerical modelling to better quantify the stability of tailings storage facilities (MRIWA PhD Scholarship)
- M0544 – Towards a Mechanistic Understanding of Electrokinetic In Situ Leaching
- M0510 – Safe, sustainable management of filtered tailings
Completed Activities:
- M10488 – Alternative use of tailings and waste-Stakeholder Engagement Workshops
- M10482 – Circular Economy Assessment and strategy GHD
- M10476 – Opportunities for growth in Australian Mine closure solutions (MCS) industry.
- M0533c & M0533d – FBI CRC Process Legacy
Page was last reviewed 3 October 2025