Original EA Amendment

6.10. Waste Management

In preparing this report, consideration has been given to guideline ESR/2015/1836 - Application

requirements for activities with waste impacts (DETSI, 2024f). DETSI is required to assess the

application against the requirements stated in the Environmental Protection Act 1994 , the

Environmental Protection Regulation 2019 (EP Regulation) and the Waste Reduction and Recycling

Act 2011 to meet the environmental objective and performance outcomes described below:

Environmental Objective

‘Any waste generated, transported, or received as part of carrying out the activities is managed in a

way that protects all environmental values’.

Performance Outcome

• Waste generated, transported, or received, is managed in accordance with the waste and

resource management hierarchy in the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 ; and

• If waste is disposed of, it is disposed of in a way that prevents or minimises adverse effects

on environmental values.

6.10.1. Values

In preparing supporting information relating to waste impacts, due consideration has been given to the

waste and resource management hierarchy (Figure 50). Measures proposed for the minimisation and

management of waste have been considered in line with this hierarchy with disposal considered to be

the final option. However, the greater project is focused on the removal and reuse of latent tailings

material to extract saleable commodities. The project achieves a secondary benefit in that these primary

sources of contamination from the latent tailings is removed and the resultant waste is disposed of

permanently in an engineered structure.

The major waste stream generated from the proposed amendments are mineral wastes in the form of

tailings that have been processed to remove contaminant mass. Permanently storing tailings in a

bespoke managed TSF is considered best practice and is a better environmental outcome than the

current setting whereby latent tailings (and waste rock) provides a source of contamination that

continues to impact he environmental values of receptors, particularly the Dee River. The amendment

does not propose any change to waste generation or storage; however, it does propose changes to

authorise a new mineral waste TSF.

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Wulguru Technical Services Pty Ltd – Supporting Information to Amend an Environmental Authority

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