Sustainable mining: reducing waste and enhancing resource efficiency

Mining activities produce vast amount of waste material in terms of overburden, tailings, and slags, which has numerous environmental and social impacts. Most conventional environmental management practices tend to worsen environmental problems and people’s health. New direction in sustainable management of mining waste, with the focus on the application of new technologies and measures, is aimed at reducing the negative influence on the environment and enhancement of resource utilization. This research approach involves collecting literature from peer-reviewed articles, industry reports, and international guidelines, and the data in this article is synthesized into an evaluation of significant innovations in waste minimization, recycling, re-use, and treatment strategies. The results shown are the trends towards the integrated solutions that implement mining industries according to the global sustainable development objectives. Where there are negative impacts, such as on the environment, more stress is put on inventions such as dry stacking, bio remedial techniques, and the idea of circular economy for value addition. Issues such as high-cost implementation and technological limitations in developing nations have been outlined, as the research presents approaches to replicating sustainability on a worldwide basis.