The term “tailings” is no longer unfamiliar to most people; today, it has become the solid waste with the largest current output and the greatest accumulated stockpile in China. The latest “Environmental Protection Tax Law” has included tailings as a taxable item—every ton emitted requires payment of a tax. 15 The tax on yuan. The significant potential value of tailings is well known to everyone; however, there are still some challenges in their practical application. Let’s hear what exactly those challenges are—our editor will break it down for you.

　　1 China generates a huge amount of tailings, yet the utilization rate is low.

　　China’s currently accumulated tailings stockpile. 600 Over 100 million tons, with an annual output reaching... 16 hundreds of millions of tons, while the comprehensive utilization rate of tailings is only 18.9% The vast majority of tailings have yet to be comprehensively utilized. As China continues to intensify its mining activities, the volume of tailings discharged will keep increasing year by year, making it imperative to accelerate the comprehensive utilization of tailings.

　　The large-scale accumulation of tailings not only results in a tremendous waste of limited land resources but also poses serious environmental and safety hazards. The heavy-metal ions, as well as pollutants such as arsenic and mercury, contained in the tailings—and various chemical reagents added during ore processing—can partially leach into nearby rivers or seep deep underground with the tailing water, severely contaminating both surface and groundwater sources. After natural drying, the tailing sand can be carried by strong winds to surrounding areas, causing further harm to the environment.

　　2 Improving the comprehensive utilization level of tailings resources urgently requires technological support.

　　In terms of technology, the country has insufficient investment in the development of forward-looking technologies for the comprehensive utilization of tailings. Enterprises lack the motivation and enthusiasm to invest in developing critical, breakthrough technologies for tailings utilization, resulting in most existing tailings utilization processes remaining at the stage of simple and readily applicable technologies. There is a notable absence of original technological R&D efforts capable of enabling the efficient and large-scale high-value utilization of tailings.

　　Therefore, enhancing the comprehensive utilization level of tailings resources in our country urgently requires support from advanced scientific and technological means. Relying on key and leading enterprises, we should carry out research into critical technologies and equipment for the comprehensive utilization of tailings, break through technical bottlenecks in the comprehensive utilization process, improve the decision-making and technical management levels throughout the process, and thereby comprehensively elevate the overall level of tailings resource utilization.

　　3 Weak foundational work and lack of data support.

　　In China’s economic development statistical system, there are currently no statistical data available on technologies for the comprehensive utilization of resources, let alone any statistics on the comprehensive utilization of tailings. This situation severely hinders the formulation of scientifically sound policy measures and makes it even more difficult to make timely adjustments to these policies based on actual conditions. The limited statistical work that has been carried out so far suffers from incomplete data, inconsistent methodologies, a lack of basic data, and poor information exchange—making it extremely challenging to use such data as a solid foundation for macroeconomic regulation and to develop effective methods for resource utilization and waste management tailored to specific circumstances.

　　Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a foundational data collection and statistical system to conduct a comprehensive assessment, gather, classify, and organize information on the overall situation of comprehensive utilization of tailings in China. Ultimately, this will enable us to set forth evaluation standards for tailing resources, technical standards for products, as well as a product testing and certification system.

　　4 Insufficient awareness of the importance of comprehensive utilization of tailings.

　　Many administrative departments and related enterprises lack a sufficient understanding of the importance and urgency of the comprehensive utilization of tailings. As a result, the development of tailings utilization remains uneven across regions, industries, and enterprises. In economically less developed areas and among some private enterprises, the wasteful use of resources and environmental pollution remain serious problems. Due to China’s long-term practice of extensive management in the mining industry—where mining companies have engaged in indiscriminate extraction, focused excessively on the value of primary mineral products while neglecting co-occurring and associated components, and lacked awareness of integrated utilization—there is a pressing need to enhance public awareness, especially among relevant enterprises and competent authorities, about the immense value of tailings and their comprehensive utilization.

　　5 Policy and regulatory frameworks are insufficient, and the current policies lack adequate support.

　　Although China has already introduced several tax incentives and supportive policies for the comprehensive utilization of resources, the low grade of tailings resources means that compared to the mining and beneficiation of primary ores, their utilization involves higher costs and yields poorer economic benefits. Moreover, the technologies required for their comprehensive utilization are more complex. Additionally, the existing policies for resource integration lack specificity and sufficient support, which has resulted in a lack of enthusiasm among most enterprises to utilize tailings.

　　Currently, the comprehensive utilization of tailings has not yet been incorporated into the legal and regulatory framework as a major techno-economic policy, leaving many aspects of this work without clear guidelines and relevant policies still not fully streamlined.

　　Although the state has issued a series of normative documents encouraging enterprises to carry out comprehensive utilization of tailings, the continuity of existing policies and the strength of policy support still fall short of meeting the needs of evolving circumstances. The pricing mechanisms for certain resource-based products still fail to fully reflect the degree of resource scarcity, the costs of environmental damage, and supply-demand dynamics. Moreover, in some regions, there remain challenges in implementing policies effectively and deviations in their execution.

　　Overall, China’s current policy framework and legal regulations are still incomplete, economic incentives remain relatively weak, and a long-term incentive mechanism for the comprehensive utilization of tailings has yet to be established.