A new potential project is exploring options for the remediation of mine-contaminated land, the recovery of residual metals, the clean-up and prevention of water pollution and, subsequently, job creation.

The Win-Win project envisions training and mobilising communities living on mine-contaminated land to clean up runoff-polluted sites and extract valuable residual metals.

The study, undertaken by KLM Consulting Services and funded by the Water Research Commission, is investigating the feasibility of a rollover self-funding model that leverages the revenue from recovered metals sold to fund the clean-up of the next site.

According to the study, the Witwatersrand, for example, has over 120 km of mine dump residue, which has not been reprocessed, owing to the difficulty and cost of using machinery to collect the soils and sediments.

Many of these deposits are inaccessible, except through shovelling and sweeping, and the costs of cleaning up these areas using conventional approaches has been estimated at tens of billions of rands.

While many mine dumps have been reworked to extract gold and silver, the roots of the mine dumps remain, the study shows, noting the resultant pollution of soil, air and water and the limited options for use of the land.

The Win-Win project is specifically targeting the dumps that have been reprocessed, leaving a skin of mine dump residue behind, which continually pollutes the air and water.

The aims of the project had been to investigate the feasibility of cleaning up soils and mine residue using women-led-community and private-partnership-participation models, as well as to determine interest, establish health and safety guidelines and obtain stakeholder feedback.

The project also probed the feasibility of planning and implementing a pilot project in the West Rand area.

The West Rand has been found to have a very high concentration of areas contaminated by the residue from reprocessed mine dumps.

Typical metals in the region are arsenic, cobalt, copper, gold, manganese, silver and sulphates.

Adopting the labour-intensive and skilling models successfully used in the Expanded Public Works Programmes’ Working for Water initiative, which trains and employs unskilled people to remove alien vegetation, the project will see the soils and sediments bagged, collected and transported to refineries, and the metals extracted and sold.

“Using the desk study information, we obtained an offer to purchase the cleaned-up tailings residue at R50/t from a mineral processing company based on the West Rand,” the research report outlines.

Win-Win calculates start-up capital of R1-million to fund the first three months, with the Women’s Development Bank expressing interest.

Revenue earned can be used to reinvest in training and the expansion of the work programme into other areas requiring clean-up.

This could potentially create 30 000 jobs and provide employment for marginalised people, while driving up the price of the land.