This means that more than 730 million tonnes of tailings pose a risk, from among the roughly 223 billion tonnes of tailings stored in more than 30,000 TSFs, including active, inactive and abandoned facilities.
Tailings are the materials left over after completion of the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore.
“The costs of de-risking or removing all TSFs that pose a high threat of harm in the event of failure are enormous – in the region of $670 billion,” the independent research organization said. “Clearly, urgent action at scale is needed to address the thousands of highest-risk TSFs that currently threaten the lives...
