Over the last seven years, the British Geological survey (BGS) has been involved in a number of waste processing investigations. The main driving force behind this work has been the need to alleviate the environmental impact of the generation, storage or disposal of mineral wastes, although processing of mineral wastes can also produce saleable mineral products.
The Benefits of recovering valuable minerals from waste, plus four case study waste processing investigations are detailed in the following sections. Much of the work concerns the recovery of industrial minerals, although latterly attention has been focused on the treatment of metalliferous waste.