Mining Weekly

Local environmental watchdog the Federation for Sustainable Environment (FSE) planted the first indigenous trees, namely Ziziphus mucronatas, which are commonly known as Buffalo thorns, on the rehabilitated footprint area of Sand Dump 20 in Randfontein, on the West Rand, earlier this month.

The planting ceremony formed part of the recently minted Sibanye-Stillwater’s Arbor Day celebrations, which included a seminar and tour with alumni experts from the University of Siegen, in Germany.

FSE CEO Mariette Liefferink states that Sand Dump 20, which is located within Randfontein’s residential area, was reportedly the “largest man-made sand dump worldwide” and had been a significant source of dust fallout and water pollution.

For the past 12 years, the sand dump has been reprocessed and residual gold extracted by Sibanye-Stillwater and its predecessors.

“In past and current dump reclamation activities, a number of cases have been identified where the remining of dumps was not completed, either owing to a lack of funding on the part of the mining company or because of the heterogeneity in the dumps that were mined,” Liefferink explains.

She points out that failure to remove the entire residue deposit, to rehabilitate the remaining footprint and to plough some of the value of the remining back into the rehabilitation of the entire mining area has “exacerbated environmental impacts”, such as dust fallout, acid mine drainage and soil contamination.