Allergy and Household Living Conditions among Adolescents Living near Gold Mine Tailing Dumps in the Gauteng and North West Provinces of South Africa

This quantitative exploratory baseline study aimed to investigate whether allergy among adolescents was associated with household living conditions, including living near gold mine tailing dumps in South Africa. A questionnaire based on the International Study of Asthma and Allergies was used to collect information on allergy and household risk factors among adolescents (n = 5611). A chi-square test was applied to determine the relationship between community (exposed/unexposed) and confounding variables. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using univariate and multiple logistic regression analysis (LRA) to estimate the likelihood of having doctor-diagnosed allergies. The overall prevalence of doctor-diagnosed allergies was 25.5%. The exposed communities had a higher prevalence of doctor-diagnosed allergies (26.97%) compared with the unexposed (22.69%) communities. The study found an association between doctor-diagnosed allergy and having fungus in the house, being female, currently having pets in and around the house, residing in the community for more than three years and living in communities located close to gold mine tailing dumps. Actions to implement buffer zones between gold mine tailing dumps and communities would support Sustainable Development Goals 3 (health) and 11 (sustainable cities and communities), while failing to address the current potential identified risk factors may pose a significant public health challenge. Local policymakers should also apply the precautionary principle to protect the health of children, especially with the location of human settlements relative to air pollution sources.

Modeling the Process of Thawing of Tailings Dam Base Soils by Technological Waters

The storage of wastes from mining and mineral processing plants in the tailing dumps in regions with cold climates has a number of environmental consequences. Interactions of water with tailings in cold climates often lead to the thawing of permafrost soils, formation of technogenic thawing zones, and leakage of drainage waters. In the case of fault zones development in these areas, technogenic solutions are often filtered outside the tailing dump, promoting further development of filtration channels. In order to prevent leakage of solution from tailing dumps over time, it is necessary to determine the thawing zones and prevent the formation of filtration channels. In the case of the formation of a filtration channel, it is necessary to know what rate of rock thawing occurred near the formed filtration channel. In this study, for the tailing dump of a diamond mining factory, we calculated two exothermic effects: (1) due to physical heating of dump rock by filtering industrial water with temperatures from 2 to 15 °C through the rock; and (2) due to the chemical interaction of industrial water with the dam base rock. The amount of energy transferred by the water to the frozen and thawed rock over 10 years was calculated using thermophysical modeling and was 207.8 GJ and 8.39 GJ respectively. The amount of energy that the rock received during the ten-year period due to dissolution of the limestones and equilibration of solutions was calculated using thermodynamic modeling and was 0.37 GJ, which is 4.4% of the average amount of energy, expended on heating the thawed rock (8.39 GJ).

Toxic element distribution analysis in tailing technozems of the lead-zinc deposits in Eastern Transbaikalia

An analysis of chemical element distribution in technozems of tailing dumps of the lead-zinc deposits of Eastern Transbaikalia is carried out. The potential toxicity of tailing mine technozems was calculated. A comparative analysis of the toxic element concentrations in the technozems of the lead-zinc deposit tailing dumps has revealed significant differences in the concentrations of toxic elements. It was found that the highest concentrations of toxic elements of the first class of hazard (As, Pb, Zn, and Cd) are characterized by the technozems of the Blagodatsky Deposit, while the lowest concentrations by those of the Khapcheranginsky Deposit. It has been established that the greatest ecological hazard is posed by the tailing dump of the Blagodatsky lead-zinc deposit, whereas a significantly smaller one by tailing dumps of the Khapcheranginsky and Novo-Shirokinsky deposits.

Recovery of Cassiterite and Topaz Minerals from an Old Metallurgical Dump, Eastern Desert of Egypt

Huge amounts of tailing dumps as a result of mines’ blasting operations were impacting both economical and environmental problems. This issue was in serious need to be treated with suitable solutions. Evaluation of one of these tailing dumps in the Eastern Desert of Egypt showed the presence of reasonable amount of cassiterite mineral reaching 0.199%. The mineral was found as finely disseminated particulates within varieties of quartz-feldspar-hornblende-biotite granitic formations. In the present study, the processing regime relied upon the synergy between reaching liberation size, and mineral over grinding due to its extreme brittleness. However, delicate grinding via attrition scrubbing was adopted to produce − 0.51 + 0.074 mm attrition product with fine fractions, reaching 62.31% and 37.59%, respectively. The recovery of cassiterite from the − 0.50 + 0.074 mm size fraction was accomplished by the physical difference between mother granitic formations that shielded the mineral grains. Under these conditions, joint shaking table/dry high intensity magnetic separation techniques were conducted to recover cassiterite mineral. The CCD statistical system was used as a mathematical approach to optimize the effect of the main working parameters of the magnetic separator, i.e., splitter inclination angle, and belt speed, and their interactions on the cassiterite recovery of the final concentrate. The suggested flow sheet succeeded to recover cassiterite mineral with a grade reaching 11.25% SnO2 with 94.08% operational recovery from a feed contained 0.19% SnO2. These results are highly imperative to achieve applicable processing flow-sheet of such kind of minerals’ secondary resources.