On June 24, 2021, Resolution No. 181/21 issued by the National Mining Secretariat, approving the “Guidelines for the Appropriate Management of Mining Waste” was published on the Official Gazette.

The Resolution is enacted in accordance with the “Strategic Plan for Argentine Mining Development” and is aimed to establish the guidelines for the appropriate management of the mining waste throughout the mine life cycle and provide a framework for its uniform and coherent implementation. It defines mining waste as the solid sludges resulting from the exploration and/or exploitation of a geological resource, such as sterile waste, gangue minerals, and those minerals stemming from the treatment, transformation and smelting processes, including the tailings and the topsoil if they are classified as waste or contaminated soil under the local laws and regulations.

Moreover, it highlights the need to create a “Mining Waste Management Plan” aimed to prevent, reduce, reprocess, reutilize, valorize, treat, and adequately dispose of mining waste in accordance with the applicable environmental principles, namely the precautionary principle, the intergenerational equity principle, and the proximity principle.

In addition, the Resolution introduces into legislation the term, “mining waste facility,” which is defined as a facility meant for either the temporary or definitive storage of waste categorized as mining waste, in a safe manner, applying equally to waste that are solid, liquid, in solution, or in liquid suspension. In that regard, it lists the following types of facilities: tailing dams, heaps, depleted leap leaches, and slag heaps. It also regulates the closure of the facilities to guarantee chemical, physical, and environmental stability. 

The Resolution highlights the importance of the waste’s valorization to achieve a so-called “circular economy,” which includes the reutilization, recycling, transformation, or reuse of mining waste.

Finally, the Resolution does not have administrative or regulatory nature and, therefore, it must be adopted by the provinces to be effectively enforced.