Classification of mining waste landfills according to legislation in Serbia

Abstract

Risk-based classification of mining waste landfills is a very important procedure that can suggest what measures should be taken to prevent failures at landfills. In many countries there is a legal obligation to classify landfills, while Serbia has included this practice in its legislation by adopting the Bylaw on the conditions and procedure for issuing waste management permits, as well as criteria, characterization, classification and reporting on mining waste in 2017. As the implementation of the Bylaw began in 2020, there are still frequent doubts during the interpretation of the criteria that can classify the landfill in the proposed category A. Starting from this issue, this paper explains in detail all the provisions of the Bylaw dealing with the terms of classification. It is determined that the landfill is classified based on the possibility of a potential failure and the character and composition of the waste disposed on it, while the process of classification according to the consequences of the failure runs through three iterations, through which endangered humanity, source-path-recipient chain and significance of consequences are analyzed. Although risk assessment is not imposed as an obligation through the Bylaw, procedures that directly or indirectly refer to the results of risk analysis and embankment breach calculation are suggested on several occasions through the classification process. By applying the classification on a specific example of flotation tailings management facility of copper mine, it was found that the realistic risk-based classification of landfills requires a very detailed analysis of all criteria leading to the final category.

Keywords

• mine waste
• tailings
• bylaw
• landfill
• category a
• classification