An Australian mine owned by the global trading firm Glencore mistakenly dumped 63 truckloads of dangerous waste material in the wrong place, where it combusted and sent sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. Calls to halt McArthur River mine operations over safety and remediation concerns Read moreThe only public admission by the mine operator, McArthur River Mining (MRM), is one paragraph within a draft environmental impact statement running to several thousand pages. The waste rock, estimated at about 14,000 tonnes, was mistaken for more benign material, the company admitted, and dumped on the company’s less secure southern waste facility. However, it did say that McArthur River Mining had “operated in accordance” with its mine management plan. In 2015, the operator was found to have dumped moderate-risk waste rock in the southern facility “using techniques no longer considered best practice”.

Source: The Guardian December 20, 2017 16:52 UTC