Modern Mining October 2025

INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Companies are mining their tailings storage facilities to convert waste into marketable commodities — and mitigating environmental risk in the process.

Unlocking revenue potential buried in mining TSFs, dump yards, and factories By Samir Damag: Global Lead for Mining in the Mill Products and Mining Industry Business Unit at SAP SE

Recovering valuable resources from waste and discarded materials has become big business. Just ask Pan African Resources, whose new state-of-the-art Mogale tailings retreatment plant in the West Rand region of South Africa, near Krugersdorp, is expected to produce 50 000 to 60 000 ounces of gold annually, accounting for about 25% of the company’s overall gold production. With that level of output, it’s no wonder PAR moved so quickly to commission the facility last October, months ahead of schedule. T he Mogale facility, along with two additional PAR tailings retreatment operations in South Africa, are among numerous reclamation, reprocessing, and recovery projects around credentials and gaining a foothold in the emerging Circular Economy. Recent policy developments are creating more opportunities for companies to pursue these kinds of projects. In South Africa, for example, pending regulatory amendments would reclassify some

Samir Damag is the Global Lead for Mining in the Mill Products and Mining Industry Business Unit at SAP SE.

the globe that highlight a paradigm shift in mining and other industries, whereby yesterday’s waste has become today’s valuable resource. Thanks to advances in technology, techniques and processes, intrepid companies are turning mining waste and other discarded, overlooked and undervalued materials into valuable commodities on a large scale and doing so profitably. And in the process, they’re not just creating new revenue streams for themselves, they’re mitigating the significant environmental risk associated with managing waste, while also building their sustainability

tailings storage facilities (TSFs) as a resource rather than waste, opening the door for more waste retreatment projects. Likewise, regulations that took hold this summer in Ontario, Canada, create a new mineral recovery permit for extraction of residual minerals from tailings and other mine waste at existing or abandoned mine sites. Now, regulatory policies like these are aligning with environmental requirements, scarcity-driven market dynamics, geopolitical developments like

18  MODERN MINING  www.modernminingmagazine.co.za | OCTOBER 2025