Climate & Environment
Tailings
The finely ground waste left after extracting minerals from ore — produced in vast volumes, often chemically hazardous.
Definition
Tailings are the finely ground rock and process effluents remaining after valuable minerals are separated from ore — the overwhelming bulk of mined material. Global production runs to billions of tonnes annually, stored in tailings storage facilities that constitute some of the largest engineered structures on Earth. Tailings frequently contain residual metals, sulfides (acid-generating when exposed), processing chemicals including cyanide, and sometimes radioactivity, making their containment a permanent environmental liability.
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