APPLE, Tiffany & Co and Rio Tinto have thrown their weight behind a public benefit restoration and re-mining company that aims to extract value from mine waste and rehabilitate the land as it does so.

Regeneration Enterprises is the brainchild of Stephen D'Esposito.

He had been looking for funding model for his non-governmental organisation Resolve, which sets out to design innovative, sustainable solutions to society's toughest challenges.

From those efforts grew Salmon Gold, which set out to clean up streams in Alaska and Yukon that had been tainted by gold mining tailings.

D'Esposito told Australia's Mining Monthly at the World Mining Congress that Salmon Gold started out re-mining the tailings, getting the gold and restoring the stream habitat.

"We have miners working with forest managers, governments and environmental stakeholders," he said. "Salmon Gold is like a peace treaty between mining and salmon habitat."

While Salmon Gold's aims are noble there is a clever commercial twist to it. It turns out companies like the idea of using materials that have been created sustainably and whose production helped improve the environment.

"In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I started doing work around mining accountability and looking at the supply chain," D'Esposito said. "I was able to build a relationship with the chief executive of Tiffany.

"I started to play a central role in a lot of mining standards and through that I got to know the mining industry.

"I also worked in responsible sourcing strategy and ended up with this idea for Salmon Gold and pitched it to Apple and Tiffany and they loved it."

They agreed to source gold from miners that committed to restoring and improving the land they were operating on.

Salmon Gold spawned Regeneration, which is taking the concept into other metals and other jurisdictions.

Resolve owns 75% of Regeneration.

Apple, Rio Tinto and jewellery maker Mejuri have agreed to partner with Regeneration.

"Regeneration gets the end users to fund its eco-projects," D'Esposito said. "It becomes part of their scope three."

Blessed are the re-miners D'Esposito said there were other re-miners out there, pointing to New Century Resources, which set out to re-mine the tailings at the old Thalanga zinc mine in Northern Queensland.

New Century was taken over by Sibanye Stillwater in May. D'Esposito said the New Century approach was a pure commercial play while Regeneration was set up as a public benefit company.

He has no plans to move into purely commercial operations until the business model is proven.

There is more to Regeneration's plans than just re-mining tailings though. While the metals pulled from the tailings could possibly go for a premium due to the green credentials attached to them, D'Esposito believes there is another revenue stream to be had.

He believes Regeneration could be paid to rehabilitate old legacy sites as well.

D'Esposito admitted the approach would possibly work better in North America where there were government mechanisms already in place.

"In the US the government gets third parties to create rehabilitation banks," he said. Combining this with the metals recovery and the potential green premiums for that metal and a potent business model starts to form.

A part of the mix would be ensuring Regeneration did not get stuck with any contingent liabilities attaching to legacy sites.

Coming to Australia

Regeneration signed a memorandum of understanding with Australian not-for-profit enviroMETS on June 29 to get enviroMETS to scout for legacy mine sites in Queensland.

"We're planning to set up Regeneration Australia," D'Esposito said.

The Regeneration approach to tailings reprocessing and site rehabilitation are technology agnostic.

"We don't bring a technology to the table," D'Esposito said. "We're finding technology innovators are having a hard time getting to site to test their technologies. We're trying to bridge that gap.

"We're funding a research project for bauxite residue. The technology being applied is something the owner didn't think would be applied to red mud.

"The other thing that will happen is companies will come to us. Rio Tinto is one." D'Esposito said one way Regeneration was getting a start was through its ability to potentially lower the cost of rehabilitation.

"That's the part of the model that's giving us early traction," he said.

 Note: Article content extracted from Mining Magazine. Noel Dyson

Just 50 km down the M1 from Brisbane lies, arguably, the world’s most commercially successful mining land rehabilitation; Gold Coast – Australia’s 5th largest city. Built by entrepreneurs who found a new value in old mining land. 

Gold Coast - The Old Mining Town

Sand Mining History

Early 1900s development of titanium alloys and zircon based refractories created the foundation for mineral sand mining on Australia’s east coast. This led to a global search for Rutile (TiO2), Zircon (Zr2SiO4) & Ilmenite (FeoTiO2). All abundant and accessible on the “south coast” beaches of Queensland. 

In 1928 a US geologist from TAMCO met Alf Neuman who was caretaker of a small plant in Tugan, Gold Coast. Subsequently, a small processing plant was built by a group of families who holidayed there.

By the late 1930’s three companies had established operations, on the Gold Coast, Mineral Deposits at Burleigh/Broadbeach, Rutile Sands at Coolangatta/ Currumbin, and TAMCO at Cudgen (South Kingscliff), where grades were reputed to be 60 - 80% heavy minerals. The first boom was for rutile needed for welding rods to build Liberty Ships.

Developing Mining Technology

It was during these years that technological innovations were developed by Gold Coast innovators. The building of large floating plants along with Joe Pinter and Ernst Reichert developing their cone concentrators, multi-start spirals, multi-stage high tension, electrostatic separators, and magnetic separators.

By 1955 all major producers had expanded and six plants operated on beaches between The Spit and Coolangatta. Three companies also operated on the adjacent Tweed Coast. Mining companies were undertaking rehabilitation by leaving now flattened sand dunes available replanted for a new post mining land use. 

Holiday makers were also discovering the area, and surfing had established itself around its world class surfing breaks. Motivated by new residents the Mines Department instituted rehabilitation requirements on mined areas.

Today’s Mining Legacy

In 1958 the boom passed and mining on the Gold Coast started to wind down during the ‘60s. Various mergers led Associated Minerals to become Iluka Minerals. The Neumann Group evolved into a successful dredging operation which has developed most of the canal estates on the Gold Coast. Neumann’s also manufactured and supplied dredges to various mining operations around the world. Mineral Deposits continues to prosper as Mineral Technologies, a global operation owned by Downer and still based on the Gold Coast.

For more history; refer Graham Balderson’s AIG paper https://www.aig.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Mineral-Sand-Mining-on-the-Gold-Coast.pdf

Gold Coast - The International City

Repurposing for Tourism

Tourism development kicked off in the 1960s, with Baby Boomers and their young families. Entrepreneurs, who had no history in mining, recognised the opportunity to repurpose the flat stable land into holiday housing estates and tourist destination facilities. The modern Gold Coast was born.

Gold Coast is now Australia’s 6th largest city (700,000 residents). It’s ‘World Surfing Reserve’ stretches 16km along what 60 years earlier was focused on mining. 

It’s an iconic international tourist destination that In 2019, contributed $5.9 billion into the local economy welcoming 14.2 million guests annually and was responsible for more than 44,000 jobs across more than 4,600 tourism businesses.

Southport 1944 - The MDS Processing Plant. Today; the MDS plant was to right of bridge.

Cudgen - Kingscliff 1960s and as a redeveloped residential area (Salt)

Rehabilitation Lessons

There are also transferable lessons for other mining areas/ jurisdictions to learn from the Gold Coast’s successes and, sometimes, mistakes. 

Arguably, the fact that the current beach sands have to be actively pumped along the coast to prevent them eroding away, could be something that similar projects done now in other places could learn from, i.e. engineering coastline developments that will allow self-sustaining beaches. How we learned to manage coastal acid sulphate soils is another.

Lessons for the World Mining Congress

The transformation of Gold Coast’s mining land use into tourism and property development, is likely the world’s most commercially successful mine land rehabilitation project. It didn’t take long, because the opportunity was welcomed. Encouraged.

Our industry’s stakeholders need to rethink our approach to finding innovative and sustainable new uses for mining impacted land. If we are to fulfil the world’s demand for critical minerals, renewables, decarbonisation, and jobs growth then we must not sterilise the opportunity to create new commercial opportunities.

Who is going to find our “101 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground”? The skills to do this lie outside of the mining industry. How many property, tourism, agriculture, aquaculture, hoteliers, data storage, defence and creative entrepreneurs does this conference attract? Probably none!

Yet these are the very people we must engage to see what fresh new high value uses can be created in our mining voids.

If you want more inspiration read our post’s on Dr Peter Whitbread-Abrutat “102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground” global tour of Australia.

enviroMETS Three Lighthouse Project Outcomes

1: To shape the future regulatory landscape that enables the creation of new sustainable value in post mining land.

2: To develop a reliable repeatable site based assessment methodology that values remining, repurposing, social, cultural environmental outcomes.

3: To identify and evaluate suitable pilot sites in Queensland where our METS innovators develop value through remining, processing and repurposing support environmental and socio-economic uplift.

Through enviroMETS collaboration partnerships we will pursue and develop new opportunities for our mining industry to overcome the trust deficit created by past activities.

enviroMETS has been assisting Dr Pete Whitbread-Abrutat on the Australian leg of his global study tour of ‘102 holes in the ground’. It kicked off on Friday 14-April, with a briefing with the Queensland Government, followed by a more relaxed session with CRC TiME and University of Qld researchers.

With the support of Eden Project, RioTinto, BHP, and AngloAmerican, Pete established, and is project managing and writing the book to be called “102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground”. This began early in 2022 and aims to be published by the end of 2023.

enviroMETS Lighthouse Projects workshop demonstrated the need for a fresh approach to how we pursue economic, social, and ecological rehabilitation of mining impacted land, and its communities. We don’t intend to reinvent the wheel, we intend to learn from others, like Pete, to find innovative and sustainable ways create new value from the many abandoned and closed mine sites in QLD. 

Pete utilised six international case study sites (pictured above) to share some global observations and themes of what is possible if we have an enabling environment (societal, regulatory policy and industry), and creative minds to try something different.  

1: Eden Project; 2: Zollverein Coal Industrial Complex; 3: Mpumalanga Coal Mines; 4: Brown Coal Strip Mining; 5: Northumberlandia; 6: Underground Adventures 

Contributing Members can Download Meeting Notes Here 

enviroMETS visits “The Eden Project,”
a former open-cut mine transformed
into a garden tourism mecca.

“Never letting a good opportunity pass, key collaborator with enviroMETS, Dr Brett Heyward was able to get a full briefing on the repurposing of this old China Clay mine by Dr Pete Whitbread-Abrutat, one of the pioneers who was there at the very first planting. It’s located the Cornish countryside, just outside of the picturesque port of Charlestown.

The Eden Project started in the late 1990s from a three-million-pound investment, the site has bloomed into a multi-sensory, garden-based tourist attraction. Receiving funds from the UK millennial project fund, it was able to create its first biosphere of tropical plants.  From there, several other funding opportunities emerged, and the site is now brimming with activity.  

   

There are two major biospheres, one dedicated to tropical biomes, the other hosting a range of temperate, Mediterranean, Spanish and Australian plants. Other buildings include the science centre (opened by the Queen in the mid-2000s), a flying fox ride that spans the whole canopy of the gardens, and a visitor centre.

Dr Whibread-Abrutat praised the commitment from the major miners, particularly Rio Tinto, for the generous contributions made to the development of the project over the past two decades.  

Not only is the site used to house precious and rare specimens of plants from around the world, it also enables experimental applications of soil development (they created 6 types of new soils used in the site from clay waste and other materials), cliff covering and innovative water management systems.  It also enables mining companies such as Rio-Tinto to explain the projects and innovations they are researching and commissioning to improve post-mining outcomes in other parts of the world.

   

The project has not been without its challenges, with underground water penetration to manage. Again, the technical expertise provided by the local METS sector has been critical in solving these engineering challenges. 

Dr Whitbread-Abrutat noted that the key ingredient in getting a project like this up and running is strong collaboration from government and industry and community. He believes that through multi-disciplinary inputs and skills, excellent creative solutions can be tried and tested for working with complex sites such as ageing and disused mine sites. 

enviroMETS is assisting Dr Pete Whitbread-Abrutat when he visits Australia next week on the last leg of his global study tour for the update of his updated book “102 Things to Do with A Hole in the Ground”. 

Whilst here, Pete will visit 11 world-class mine rehabilitation projects across 6 states. He will be talking to Queensland Government representatives, and METS industry professionals interested in creating new repurposed futures for abandoned or mines in closure.

Author: Prof Brett Heyward, enviroMETS Collaborator

Download Full Article Here

enviroMETS are pleased to announce our partnership with @Sedgman in 2023, to support our mission to find innovative and sustainable repurposing, re-commercialising, and remediation solutions to mining impacted land. 

Sedgman are specialists in mineral processing and have vast experience designing and executing innovative solutions for reducing tailings volumes in projects involving tailings reprocessing and dewatering.  

Sedgman has expertise in mine rehabilitation and are keen to bring their experience to the table in this unique opportunity to collaborate with government, researchers, mine owners and METS companies to find solutions to abandoned mines that provide not only a rehabilitated landscape but positive community and cultural legacies.

A low-emissions future isn’t possible without mining the key minerals to support renewable technologies. We need to attract the best and brightest to join our industry to help us deliver sustainable mining solutions in Queensland and globally. As part of our partnership, we will be working with enviroMETS mission to support projects that provide credibility in our sector’s ability to deliver innovative mine closure solutions that leave a positive legacy. We believe this can be an industry people are proud to work in, as we strive towards a lower-impact world. 

Sedgman Managing Director, Grant Fraser, said: “We have a proud history of innovation, collaboration and sustainable solutions at Sedgman and we are pleased to partner with enviroMETS  to support sustainable approaches in the resources industry.”

Allan Morton, Executive Director of enviroMETS said enviroMETS is delighted that Sedgman is endorsing our mission with their partnering support. Having a respected Queensland based and leading global industry solutions provider as part of our team enables us to take on a challenging problem with post mining land use with confidence.

It is clear that CRC TiME and enviroMETS are a natural fit.

Our missions are very complementary. The mindset of our people are collaborative by nature. The most power bit is that our foundations are different and therefore support each other.

enviroMETS is now a Supporting Participant, alongside many well known and respected industry, research and government organisations. In January, we will kick off our ‘Lighthouse Projects’ working with CRC TiME to find new ways of creating post mining land use value.

In November we attended CRC TiME’s “Breaking Barriers” 2022 Forum. It exceeded our expectation with its focused, high quality presentations. Well organised, good strong discussions in a 'safe' space to think outside the box on how we can improve the post mining value of mining affected land for current, and future custodians. 

Read More: Reflections and Insights Summary_Participant - FINAL.pdf

Together we are pursuing the new competitive edge for our mining sector, an economic, societal and environmental ‘net best shared value’.

     

"Queensland is Leading the Pack"

We’re gratified with the response received from industry, researchers and government attendees when we spoke about enviroMETS unique independent industry-led (NFP) organisation. It seems that our Queensland initiative, our mission and intent to work closely with CRC TiME. is the right idea, at the right time, with the right people. A concept broadly supported across Queensland Government agencies. 

Lighthouse Projects

enviroMETS enters the new year with a focus on its Lighthouse Projects. This will be delivered utilising a unique collaboration of expertise and interest groups. Step 1, will be a ‘Post Mining Land Use Transition Perception Survey’, that comes out mid January. That’ll be followed up by Step 2, a ‘Lighthouse Project Customer Scoping Workshop’. Then the regional based workshops for the selected site/s follow.

Between now and then, enjoy a great break. 

Funds will be deployed to improve re-commercialisation of mine closure sites through value-lifting innovations and technologies.

EnviroMETS™ (Qld) Limited [eMQ] has announced it has signed a major seed funding agreement with CRC ORE. The agreement was formally signed during a visit to CORE Resources’ minerals processing research facility by senior management from both companies. The funds will be directed towards initiating several mine site rehabilitation “lighthouse” projects in regional Queensland. 

The CRC ORE funding tranche will be directed to support several “lighthouse” projects in regional Queensland to provide knowledge, technology, data, and evidence to demonstrate best practice approaches, and to inform policy and legislation on how net best value solutions can be achieved.

Allan Morton, Executive Director of enviroMETS, said:

“We will be working with industry, government, researchers, and innovative companies to identify new ways of rehabilitating mining impacted land, via recommercialisation, repurposing and remediation, to increase the ‘net best value’ for its mining operators and future custodians, as well as local communities and the environment.”

“The recent evolvement of our enviroMETS Innovation Ecosystem model unlocks the potential for an operational template to develop and become the model for similar regional or state-based project delivery platforms that create tangible economic, social and environmental value for mining affected lands” he said.

Chairman of CRC ORE, Jon Lorraine, said:

“I believe the enviroMETS Innovation Ecosystem presents a unique capability to find new, innovative and sustainable solutions which are beyond those of a single firm because it brings together the skills, experience, and self-interest of its members into commercial project opportunities. Like us, enviroMETS is a not-for-profit organisation and it will therefore be an effective, natural delivery partner of other research orientated initiatives.”

“Directors of CRC ORE will provide continuing support for enviroMETS to benefit from our decades of mineral extraction research in Queensland.”

About CRC ORE:

CRC ORE (Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Research Extraction) was formed as a not-for-profit organisation in 2010 by a host of forward-thinking collaborators focused on finding solutions to integrate point solutions and whole-of-system thinking. Their aim was to transform the minerals sector by deploying innovative world-class technology to affect a step change in value across the whole-of-mine system. It aimed to ‘Optimise Resource Extraction’ through site implementation of innovation to improve overall productivity. 

It was initially funded by the Australian Federal Government and the global minerals industry. and has now achieved support of over $160M in investment to achieve critical mass and capacity. This includes $34.4m in federal funding, with the remaining investment through Mining, METS and Research participants. https://www.crcore.org.au

enviroMETS (Qld) exhibited at its first show last week at IMARC.

We had a very steady stream of interested people keen to learn more about the "unique" and "innovative" approach to finding new ways towards addressing the challenging mix of technical, social and environmental issues associated with making mining impacted land more valuable.

The overwhelming sentiment was; "Queensland (Government) has taken a big step ahead of other jurisdictions in establishing and supporting an independent, industry-led NFP company to work between the bureaucracy and industry". enviroMETS can do things that is out of reach for public authorities or commercial entities.

There was a lot of interest in be incoming involved in our Lighthouse Projects. That's the next big step forward of all involved.

Joining enviroMETS, as Follower, Networker or Contributor is FREE and easy. click here.

Mine land rehabilitation is an industry wide challenge that is going to become increasingly more difficult as the demand for minerals increases dramatically, grades decline and extraction becomes more complex.

Put simply this means more mining, not less. And, the footprint mining leaves behind must notably improve if we are to restore community trust and restore industry support for mining.

In their paper, "A Brief History of Mine Rehabilitation in Queensland", the Office of the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner [QMRC] describes several decades of well intentioned regulatory effort intent on improving the residual land outcomes from the impacts of mining disturbance. 

The QMRC authors make it clear that Queensland has been focused on implementing regulatory obligations to adjust the mindset of industry to a proactive approach to mine closure.

It is quite fair that the state, and therefore its people, should not be burdened with the enduring financial liability for cleanup of disclaimed and abandoned mining land. Hence, the Financial Provisioning Fund is created, with some good , and not good, consequences.

Unfortunately regulation can be a blunt axe approach that encourages the legal fraternity to find loopholes (for some) to skirt what should be a commitment for a more valuable post mining social and environmental impact.

QMRC lays an essential platform

The QMRC looks to achieve best practice in mined land rehabilitation, by raising the awareness, promoting research, providing advice, and monitoring performance.

The 'brief history' shows that what we have now, is stage in policy development, not a destination. How we see solutions will change.

To date "remediation" has been the fall-back outcome, where the mining industry seeks to find 'least net cost' based solutions to meet its obligations.

enviroMETS (Qld) looks to 'net best value'

enviroMETS was incorporated on the realisation that these are complex industry wide issues that will only be solved with an innovation ecosystem working collaboratively to increase the value of mining impacted land for its future custodians.

Our support for the QMRC's goals will arise via our Lighthouse Projects, where we intend to look at a number of representative mine sites, (abandoned, legacy, C&M, and closure) through technical, economic, social and environmental lens.

We'd expect to find some innovative and sustainable new ways of recommercialising, repurposing and remediating land. Though multi-discipline collaboration we seek outcomes that deliver 'net best value'.

These will be solutions that could well involve forms of private-public partnerships, adaption of technologies from outside mining and seeing value in the mined landform for another purpose.

An opportunity for Queensland to lead

Pursuit of 'net best' solution means collectively valuing three impacts; the resource extraction, the social community development, and the environmental improvement.

Almost certainly regulatory frameworks will change, as will community expectations. enviroMETS sees the disconnect between the way mining and post-mine worlds interface and opportunities for economic re-purposing of assets and value generation to our economy.

One expects that there is more history to come in terms of Queensland's regulatory framework as the industry works to create the net best outcomes and fulfils the demand for resources.

What we achieve together may lead the world.

__________

Ref: A Brief History of Mine Rehabilitation Reforms in Queensland. (2022 39 EPLJ 64. is published by Thomson Reuters (Professional) Australia

Another key action item milestone achieved for the Queensland Government's METS 10-year Roadmap.

Well. We have enviroMETS (Qld) Limited launched.

It seemed like a challenging road as we treaded each step. Now we have the independent, industry led not-for-profit entity in place that was envisaged in that TeQ Alliance cluster workshop in Nov-21. The team and its supporters have done a great job to achieve this milestone. For me, it’s a WayPoint in fulfilling our mission.

To record a reflection of that journey, I was engaged through METS Ignited with funding provided by the Queensland Government to fulfil a number of core goals set out in the Queensland Government Advance Queensland initiative, METS 10 year Roadmap and Action Plan (2017- 2027). 

Operating as a METS Ignited hosted resource industry cluster in its first three years facilitated a number of significant economic wins for Queensland METS companies; SoilCyclers, Phibion, EQ Resources (Mt Carbine) and Heritage Minerals (see pic above of Mt Morgan). However, after a workshop and some 50 interviews we realised that the cluster’s focus was too narrow and was constrained by its organisation structure. So we changed it.

METS Impact in Queensland

Queensland has a world-leading METS sector. It employs 29,600 people in more than 800 companies across Queensland, with $7 billion revenue and $3.07 billion in value add for our economy. Read Queensland State Development Info Here

We intend to develop world-class METS expertise on increasing the value of mining impacted land and taking it to new markets - locally and internationally. Queensland has a history of excellence in METS capabilities, from digital solutions, new extraction technologies and mine site rehabilitation. 

Pursuing Collaborative Business Opportunities

enviroMETS expands the previous tailings and mine affected water focused cluster into an innovation ecosystem (a supercluster). This brings together collaborative contributors from innovative SMEs and supply chain vendors, researchers, regional and state government, corporate METS and Mining, Venture Capital and our industry representative affiliates.

We'll develop our Expertise Streams to improve competitiveness, productivity and sustainability, and to improve access to national and international markets. 

Lighthouse Projects

enviroMETS has no intention of becoming a (“men’s shed”) talkfest. We are determined to be delivering tangible economic, social and environmental outcomes.

First step is to learn what’s not known, or needed, to enable more flexible and effective mine closure options.

That's what our Lighthouse Projects will achieve. Stay tuned.