Environmental and Sustainable Development indicators for a preliminary strategic assessment of REE recovery from mine tailings

Abstract

Rare earth elements (REEs) are considered as critical strategic resources. Their significance for the development of modern technologies provided an incentive to search alternative resources which include, among others, industrial tailings. Because of the low REEs concentration in ore from secondary sources and the difficulty in REE separating, there is a need for individual selection of enrichment and recovery methods for individual landfills. At the same time, in line with the EU directives and good planning and development practice, environmental aspects must be taken into account as early as possible in the decision-making process. Presented recommendations are part of the ENVIREE project, which aims to develop environmentally-friendly REEs recovery technologies from selected industrial waste disposal sites. The recommendations complement results of Life Cycle Assessments for ore enrichment and separation technology. Based on a review of the environmental aspects (screening, scoping stage of environmental assessment), a set of environmental, emissions, technology efficiency, sustainable local development indicators are proposed. The set of indicators refers to the stage of acquisition and beneficiation of the material from industrial landfills, and after the determination of the basic emissions levels from the plant in the semi-technical phase, may support the ecological ranking of projects.