TOMRA: Turning Mining Waste into Connected Infrastructure

According to the European Commission, mining waste is one of the largest waste streams in the EU. Some of this waste can include dangerous substances and poor management can lead to harsh impacts on people and the environment. However, TOMRA is helping mining companies turn mining waste into clean and profitable infrastructure resources.

As organisations around the world look to boost their sustainable operations, the mining industry is no outlier.

Mining waste has become a significant concern across the EU, coming from extracting and processing mineral resources. With this extraction comes waste materials, such as tailings, waste rock and topsoil overburden.

Some of the waste can contain dangerous substances, like heavy metals, which could result in acid or alkaline drainage.

Alternatively, tailings management is risky, as it is stored in heaps which can collapse with impacts on human health, the environment and the economy.

However, there are untapped opportunities within this waste, with capabilities to better sort through the waste or innovations that have previously been ignored.

TOMRA operates in sensor-based sorting, reverse vending and recycling solutions which drive a circular economy and boost resource recovery. The company’s sensor-based sorting technology is now helping mining companies around the world recover 'waste' resources.

As a result, it is driving sustainable critical mineral production, boosting efficiency and extending mine life.

Sourcing material for construction

Mining operations generate significant amounts of waste rock, which are then transported large distances, stockpiled or dumped before being monitored for decades. This has a major operational, financial and environmental cost.

Despite this, mines import materials for plant foundations, tailings dams and more. In remote regions especially, transporting this material can be expensive, adding even larger costs to the infrastructure project.

TOMRA argues that a vast amount of the waste rock has the capability and strength for this construction work. It has often been overlooked because of the sulphides and acid-forming material.

However, these can be removed and result in clean and stable materials. TOMRA Mining uses sensor-based sorting technology to unlock this potential.

Sensor technology ensuring safety

The sorting allows mines to remove acid-forming material from the waste rock, using X-ray Transmission (XRT) sorting which can detect fine-grained inclusions like base metal sulphides.

Once the acid-forming particles are removed from the feed stream, the low-sulphide material can be managed, whether placed securely in long-term storage, sold as aggregate or used on-site.

This unlocks untapped resource value in order to drive a circular economy. By recovering waste and utilising it or selling it for profit, mining companies can unlock cost savings or generate a higher revenue stream, resulting in more efficient and less expensive operations.

"We are able to recover more metal from the same amount of material,” explains Rasoul Rezai, Global Segment Manager-Metals at TOMRA Mining.

“By rejecting waste early, operators feed higher-grade material into their mills, reduce operational expenditure and improve overall efficiency. This is particularly crucial for critical minerals, where supply tensions are increasing worldwide.” 

Generating revenue from aggregate

TOMRA XRT sorting offers confidence and control for mining leaders, providing them with the data to best manage the material. At Kensington Mine in Alaska, the XRT sorting helps turn clean waste into usable waste, simultaneously enhancing gold recovery and supporting environmentally responsible tailings management.

“In the latest publicly available technical report, 4,216 oz of gold were recovered from the pebble sorting operation in one year,” says Jordan Rutledge, Area Sales Manager at TOMRA Mining.

“In January 2026, that represents almost US$20m in recovered value – while still producing a clean, low-sulphide waste stream that can be safely placed or reused. That combination is what makes sorting so compelling for customers.”

Other mining operations have seen the benefits of TOMRA sourcing capabilities. At the Mt Carbine operation in Queensland, Australia, they are using TOMRA XRT to process tungsten-bearing ore and generating a barren waste stream which is being repurposed and sold as aggregate.

By selling this material that was once considered waste, the mine has been able to implement circularity and gain untapped revenue.

By sorting, transporting, selling and reusing this 'waste', mines around the world are able to extend their operational lifespan and implement a circular economy, ensuring resilience, sustainability and cost savings across the supply chain.

TOMRA explains that traditionally operations have operated on a simple equation where ore generates profit and waste generates cost, but sensor-based sorting breaks that model.