Critical minerals power green tech – but unsafe mining waste can wreck communities. Here’s how stronger rules and smart tech can fix the problem at its source.
Mining Waste Rules That Actually Protect People
Tailings dams fail more often than most people realise: on average, one major failure every 8–10 months globally, each dumping millions of tonnes of toxic mining waste into rivers and communities. As the world scrambles for lithium, nickel, copper and rare earths to power green technology, that risk is quietly growing.
Most companies and governments are sprinting to secure critical minerals but walking when it comes to mining waste management. That’s the gap new research from Transport & Environment (T&E) and Earthworks is trying to close, by benchmarking mining waste rules across countries and regions.
This matters because the energy transition only works if it’s actually clean end to end. Solar panels, EV batteries and wind turbines built on the back of unsafe mines just shift pollution from one community to another. In our Green Technology series, we’ve looked at how AI improves clean energy and smart cities; here we’re looking upstream at the raw materials those systems depend on – and how smarter rules and technology can keep waste from becoming disaster.
Why Mining Waste Is One of the Biggest Blind Spots
Mining waste – especially tailings – is the largest industrial waste stream on Earth. For every tonne of metal produced, you can easily see 50–100 tonnes of waste rock and tailings, often laced with heavy metals, acids, and process chemicals.
The core problem is simple: demand is soaring faster than standards.
- Clean energy technologies are expected to increase demand for some critical minerals by 2–7x by 2040.
- New and expanded mines are planned across Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, China, and the EU.
- Many jurisdictions still rely on outdated or weak rules for tailings storage, monitoring, and closure.
When tailings management fails, the damage is brutal and long-lasting: contaminated rivers, destroyed farmland, forced displacement, and greenhouse-gas-intensive cleanups that wipe out any climate benefit the minerals were supposed to deliver.
Here’s the thing about mining waste: it’s not an unsolvable technical problem. The engineering is mature. The failures are mostly about governance, weak enforcement, and perverse incentives.
What T&E and Earthworks Are Benchmarking – And Why It Matters
T&E and Earthworks set out to answer a blunt question: which jurisdictions have mining waste rules that actually protect people and ecosystems, and which don’t?
Their global benchmarking (focusing on the EU, Brazil, China, South Africa, Indonesia and others) compares national rules against international best practices, such as:
- Bans on the riskiest tailings dam designs
- Mandatory independent audits and public reporting
- Requirements for financial assurance (so companies pay for cleanup, not taxpayers)
- Community participation and free, prior and informed consent
- Strong closure and post-closure obligations
The reality? Most mining regulations were written for a different era – lower waste volumes, different metals, less climate stress, and far smaller communities around mines.
A modern, best-practice mining waste framework needs to assume:
- More extreme rainfall and floods from climate change
- Much larger tailings facilities for lower-grade ores
- AI- and sensor-enabled monitoring that can spot problems early
- Social expectations of transparency that didn’t exist 20 years ago
Benchmarking makes laggards visible. Once you rank countries, it becomes politically harder to pretend everything is fine while operating with substandard rules.
Regions in Focus: Where Mining Waste Risks Are Rising
Different regions are moving at very different speeds. Here’s a quick, high-level look at how the key players fit into the global picture.
European Union: Stronger on Paper, Gaps in Practice
The EU generally sits closer to the “high standard” end of the spectrum, with:
- An existing Mining Waste Directive
- Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for major projects
- Growing pressure to align mining with the EU Green Deal
But there are gaps:
- Old facilities often operate under legacy permits with weaker standards.
- Harmonisation across member states is inconsistent.
- Communities still struggle to access clear, real-time data on tailings risks.
For European manufacturers racing to secure critical minerals through the Critical Raw Materials Act, this is a credibility test. If Europe wants to champion green technology, its mines and its import standards need to reflect the same values.
Brazil and South Africa: Hard Lessons, Slow Change
Brazil and South Africa have both suffered high-profile tailings dam failures over the past decade. Those disasters forced regulatory updates, but progress is uneven:
- Some risky dam designs are being phased out, but thousands of older structures remain.
- Enforcement agencies are underfunded compared to the scale of the risk.
- Communities often learn about problems only after something has gone wrong.
The hard truth: regulation tends to move after, not before, a disaster. That’s a pattern the T&E/Earthworks benchmarking is trying to break by documenting where risk is structurally baked into the rules.
China and Indonesia: Rapid Expansion, Patchy Oversight
Both China and Indonesia are central to the energy transition supply chain – from nickel for EV batteries to rare earths for wind turbines.
They have:
- Strong policy ambition for clean energy and industrial growth
- Large state-owned or closely regulated mining sectors
But they also face:
- Rapid capacity expansion outpacing regulatory capacity
- Inconsistent implementation at provincial/local levels
- Ongoing reliance on environmentally sensitive areas (forests, watersheds, coastal zones)
For global brands sourcing from these regions, this is where supply chain due diligence and strong procurement policies become non-negotiable.
What “Best Practice” Mining Waste Management Actually Looks Like
“Best practice” isn’t a slogan. It’s a set of specific rules, designs, and technologies that dramatically reduce risk. If you’re in policy, supply chain, or sustainability, these are the elements you should be looking for.
1. Ban the Riskiest Tailings Designs
Upstream tailings dams – the cheapest but most failure-prone design – have been at the centre of multiple catastrophic collapses worldwide.
A modern rulebook should:
- Ban new upstream tailings facilities
- Require risk-based reviews and, where necessary, decommissioning or reinforcement of existing ones
- Prefer safer alternatives like downstream or centreline dams, or filtered (dry stack) tailings where conditions allow
2. Require Full Lifecycle Planning and Financial Assurance
Any mine that can’t show how it will safely close and monitor its tailings facility shouldn’t open.
Robust frameworks include:
- Mine closure plans approved before production starts
- Fully funded financial assurance (bonds, trust funds) sized to realistic closure and disaster scenarios
- Legal obligations that survive company restructuring and bankruptcy
This is where many jurisdictions fail. Without financial assurance, the true cost of mining is quietly offloaded to the public and to future generations.
3. Make Monitoring Continuous and Transparent
This is where green technology and AI really earn their keep.
Leading operations are now using:
- IoT sensors to track water levels, pore pressure, and structural stability in real time
- Satellite imagery and LiDAR to detect tiny shifts in dam walls
- AI models to flag anomalies and predict failure risk based on patterns humans miss
But tech only matters if the data isn’t locked away.
Best practice means:
- Requiring continuous monitoring for high-risk facilities
- Mandating public reporting dashboards for key safety indicators
- Independent third-party audits of systems and data integrity
When communities and regulators can see tailings risk in near real time, it changes the power balance.
4. Centre Communities and Worker Safety
You can’t call a mine “responsible” if the people living and working beside the waste aren’t part of the conversation.
Effective rules require:
- Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for Indigenous and local communities
- Worker safety standards including training, alarm systems, and clear emergency protocols
- Legally enforceable community consultation and grievance mechanisms
I’ve seen too many “consultations” that are basically PR roadshows. Genuine participation means communities can say no, or demand safer designs and real-time information.
How Green Technology and AI Can Reduce Mining Waste Risks
Here’s the interesting connection back to our Green Technology series: the same digital tools making energy systems smarter can make mines safer too.
A few concrete examples:
AI for Tailings Risk Prediction
- Machine learning models can analyse historical dam failures, rainfall, seismic data, and site-specific sensor data.
- These models can assign dynamic risk scores and generate early warnings days or weeks before a human inspector would see a problem.
Process Optimization to Reduce Waste Volume
AI-driven process control can:
- Improve ore sorting, so more metal is extracted from less rock
- Reduce the volume and toxicity of tailings per tonne of metal produced
- Optimize water and chemical use, shrinking the environmental footprint
This doesn’t magically make mining “green”, but it raises the ceiling of what good looks like – and regulators should expect companies to use these tools.
Digital Twins of Tailings Facilities
By creating a virtual model of a tailings dam – a digital twin – operators and regulators can:
- Run “what if” simulations under extreme rainfall or seismic events
- Test reinforcement options before spending in the field
- Provide clear, visual risk information to communities
The underlying point is simple: there’s no excuse for flying blind anymore. The tech is there. The missing piece is political will and regulatory demand.
What Businesses and Policymakers Should Do Next
If you’re working in energy, manufacturing, finance, or policy, you’re already exposed to mining waste risk – whether it’s on your own operations or buried in your supply chain.
Here’s a practical checklist for action:
For Policymakers and Regulators
- Benchmark your rules against emerging best practice, including the T&E and Earthworks criteria.
- Ban high-risk tailings designs for new projects and require risk reviews of existing dams.
- Mandate AI- and sensor-enabled monitoring for large or high-consequence facilities.
- Strengthen financial assurance requirements so taxpayers aren’t left with the bill.
- Require transparent, public reporting of tailings safety indicators.
For Manufacturers and Clean Tech Companies
- Integrate mining waste criteria into responsible sourcing policies.
- Prioritise suppliers that adopt best-practice tailings management and real-time monitoring.
- Use AI tools for supply chain risk mapping, flagging mines in high-risk jurisdictions.
- Engage in multi-stakeholder initiatives with NGOs, communities, and progressive miners.
For Investors and Lenders
- Treat mining waste mismanagement as a material financial risk.
- Require tailings disclosure and independent audits as a condition for finance.
- Steer capital toward projects that use dry-stack or safer tailings technologies, even if CAPEX is higher.
The pattern across all three groups is the same: align your risk management with where standards are heading, not where they were ten years ago.
A Cleaner Mineral Supply Chain Is Possible
The energy transition doesn’t have to repeat the worst habits of the fossil fuel era. A cleaner mineral supply chain is entirely compatible with rapid deployment of green technology – but only if mining waste is treated as a first-order design problem, not an afterthought.
T&E and Earthworks’ global benchmarking is a useful wake-up call. It shows where rules are keeping up, where they’re lagging, and where green rhetoric hides brown practices. As more governments update their mining codes and more companies commit to responsible sourcing, those benchmarks will quietly shape which projects get built – and which don’t.
If you’re serious about climate, you have to be serious about tailings. The next generation of solar farms, EV fleets and smart cities will be judged not just by how clean their electricity is, but by how responsibly their minerals were dug, processed and stored.
The opportunity now is to build a mineral supply chain that future communities don’t have to clean up. That’s the version of the energy transition worth fighting for.