ABSTRACT
Mining and metallurgical industries play an important role in the economies of many countries (Aubertin and Bussière, 2001). In fact, these industries are considered to be among the major pillars of world industry (Zheng and Kozinski, 1996). However, mining and metallurgical industries create severe environmental problems by discharging waste in the form of solid, liquid and gaseous emissions (Wiertz, 1999; Chan et al., 2008). According to the Fraser Institute (2012) ‘waste’ is a general term for materials which have little or no economic value. For example, the soil and rock that are removed in order to gain access to buried ore and the material (liquid, solids and gases) left behind after the ore has been processed to remove the valuable commodities, are considered to be waste materials.
