The war on mine waste

An international ‘war on waste’ is being waged. Consumers and industry are becoming more aware of the life of their goods and their environmental impacts. But how can we build a circular economy for the mining industry and, more specifically, for managing innumerable tonnes of mine waste?

Dr Anita Parbhakar-Fox hopes to solve these issues, by investigating how we can mine that ‘waste’. She hopes her innovative research will help meet the metal demands of our growing global community, while at the same time minimising environmental damage. Not all barriers to winning the war are not necessarily technological. Instead, they are socio-economic, and societies need to see the true value of ‘waste’.

Join us at BrisScience where Dr Parbhakar-Fox will explore whether we can expand circular economy principles in mining, and how we can get rid of true mining waste and avoid environmental harm.

Watch the recording

Recording of "The war on mine waste" talk (YouTube, 45min)

Meet the presenter

Dr Anita Parbhakar-Fox is an environmental geologist specialised in applied geochemistry and geometallurgy, with 15 years of experience working in mine waste management and contaminated land. Her work is focussed on integrated waste characterisation across the entire mining value chain to improve mine planning and waste management practices where she has worked with mining industry, METS sector and government stakeholders.

Dr Parbhakar-Fox has developed new tests and protocols for improving waste characterisation and is involved in identifying remediation options for abandoned/historical mine sites.

She is the current leader of the Mine Waste Transformation through Characterisation group at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI), who have a four-year flagship project on secondary prospectivity of mine waste with a focus on critical mineral exploration funded by the Queensland State Government.