The race for critical materials focuses on mining waste

Not only mining. In the race to find and 'exploit' critical materials, there is also mining waste. That is, those that were stored in the past, (at least 50 years ago) in the vicinity of industrial mining areas that were later decommissioned. Waste placed in tailings dams, from which, with new processing techniques, raw materials can be extracted. This is the other side of the race for critical materials that also emerges from the 14 projects contained in the national mineral exploration programme prepared by Ispra and approved by the Interministerial Committee for the Ecological Transition. "Mining activities that were closed, or abandoned prior to Legislative Decree 117/08, have left large quantities of mining waste stored in storage facilities, in the form of heaps of landfill and settling ponds, even of considerable size,' the document states. 'In the Sardinian mining district, the most important in Italy, there are about 70 million cubic metres of such waste, with a consequent high environmental impact.

In the whole country, according to the study, an estimated 150 million cubic metres of waste are present.

The Ispra geological service will be in charge of characterising the areas, as part of the Mase Pnrr project called Urbes. The results will be entered into a computer platform that will then be used to define intervention programmes.

The sites that will be immediately investigated include Raibl in the province of Udine, where there are "large quantities of mining waste, at least 4 million cubic metres with good levels of Zinc (1.6%) in disorderly heaps and a settling basin", to continue with Monte Avanza and Salafossa, where there are high levels of Germanium, Arsenic, Nickel, Thallium and Chlorine. Galena also has high levels of arsenic and antimony. In north-western Italy, one goes from Gorno to Pestarena, continuing with Libiola and Gambatesa. Here the elements are zinc, lead and silver (with associated Fluorite and Barite). Also on the list of sites to be investigated are Valmalenco and Val d'Ossola as well as Sicily and Sardinia. Rare earths, lead, zinc and other elements on the list of critical materials are to be investigated.

Also preparing a study on the state of land reclamation in Italy is the Cgil's Industry Department, which has estimated the entire land reclamation of industrial areas at 30 billion.