MINTAILS
Tailings are small and range from the size of a grain of sand to a few micrometres
“ Mintails aims to release 8,000 hectares of land for settlements having alleviated around 600 to date ’ land to a safe level for the construction of housing , something which is desperately needed in the Johannesburg hinterland .
It is already recovering land through open cast mining by removing the on-surface reef outcrops and stabilising the area , and post-closure operations will become a top priority for the company .
“ Although mining has taken place here for the last 120 years no single gold mine has achieved closure of mines , it has always been signed back ,” Jacobs said . “ We want to be the first ones to close mines .
“ Environmentally , the West Rand is among the worst . In the late 1990s all mining slowed down , all
106 July 2014