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Tag: Water management

African iron ore mine achieves 30% less water truck trips on haul roads



Client:
An Iron ore mine

Location:
South Africa

Challenge:
Water scarcity 

Use-Case:
Haul road stabilisation and dust control

Each day, this inefficient method strained the mine’s water resources, increased equipment wear, and put pressure on production costs.
The regulatory environment intensified the need to look for alternative options as the site faced warnings from South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) due to excessive dust levels.

They knew that if they continued exceeding dust fallout limits, the DMRE could halt operations entirely. Faced with these challenges, the Mining Manager began to look into a more sustainable, cost-effective alternative that could control dust and reduce water use.

Researching alternative dust control methods

The mine operates in an arid region and access to water is limited. Anything that could reduce the amount of water on the roads was something the Iron Ore mine seriously considered.

“It’s a very water-scarce area. They’ve got a set amount of potable water that they can utilise across the whole mine. So anything that can reduce the amount that’s being sprayed onto the roads is worth considering because that’s put to better use in the process plant,” says Alex McHaffie, General Manager, Bind-X.

Initially, the mine considered continuing with their existing options: lignosulfonates and bitumen blends. While these methods offered decent performance, they brought several limitations. Bitumen emulsions stained the water trucks, added wear and tear to equipment, and became cumbersome to apply.

Costs also posed a challenge: bitumen, being a crude-oil-based product, is deeply connected to the oil price which continued to rise, adding budget strain to an already cost-sensitive operation.

Although lignosulfonates helped stabilise roads, they required frequent reapplication and high volumes of water, both of which clashed with the mine’s commitment to conserving water in their community.

The Mining Manager explored newer technologies and found a biological dust control method by Bind-X which addressed each of these challenges. With Terrabind, the mine site could reduce daily dust suppression applications by 30%, conserving water and lowering labor costs.

The product’s application also proved simpler, required less frequent attention, and left no staining or residue on vehicles. And from an environmental perspective, it was clean for plants, animals, and waterways.

Soil testing and compatibility

First, Bind-X conducted soil sample tests to confirm compatibility with the mine’s iron ore haul roads. With positive results, they chose to move forward, providing training on the product’s application methods. As Alex explains, “They initially queried whether less water and fewer applications would mean reduced effectiveness, but they were thrilled when we achieved the opposite: better dust results with less water.”

A biological approach also aligned with the mine’s strict budget and commitment to environmental safety. Instead of multiple daily sprays with high water volumes, the team could now apply a concentrated solution at less frequent intervals. This adjustment helped the operation reduce water and labour costs, optimise haul road durability, and prevent vehicle staining and equipment wear.

30% less water truck trips

With the new dust control method in place, the mine experienced substantial and immediate improvements. By reducing dust suppression applications by 30%, they cut water usage significantly, which allowed the operation to redirect water to essential mining processes. As a result, the haul roads required less maintenance, improving cycle times and production targets.

Moreover, they began to consistently meet the DMRE’s strict dust fallout regulations, ensuring the mine operated without regulatory interruptions. “Since switching to Bind-X, we haven’t faced any DMRE warnings in over 20 months,” reported the Mining Manager.

He also noted that vehicle maintenance had declined as the new dust control solution left no residue.

Mining manager
A South African iron ore mine

“It allowed us to achieve outcomes that meet or even surpass those from previous products. The application aligns perfectly with our environmental safety goals and also safeguards our equipment. We’re seeing superior dust control at lower costs, with the added benefit of reducing our carbon footprint. Each regulatory visit confirms our full compliance, and we’ve set a new benchmark for dust control on site.” 

By implementing a biological dust control method, the mine addressed critical water and dust control challenges head-on, and made their operation more environmentally responsible at the same time.  The mine’s success exemplifies how strategic, sustainable choices can drive operational excellence, allowing the mine to set a new standard in water efficiency, regulatory compliance, and long-term productivity.

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Eramet’s GCO reduces road water usage by 85% with biological dust control approach



Client:
Client
Grande Côte Opérations (GCO)

Location:
Location
Senegal

Challange:
Challenge
Water damages road infrastructure 

Use-Case:
use-case
haul road stabilisation and dust control

The mine is close to a local community, so there’s always pressure to do things better — reducing environmental impact and using less water are top priorities. 

 In 2022, the mining services team realised they were spraying over 242,000 litres of water per day on the roads just to keep road dust under control. They wanted to reduce water consumption, so the business proactively decided to test other options. One of the tests, a biological dust control method, reduced water usage by 85% and created a three-fold drop in dust fallout. Here’s how they did it. 

The pressure on water resources in WA mining

With a local community living nearby, the mine services team had to keep a close eye on air quality. And from a production point of view, any fines kicked-up from the road reduced visibility for the drivers and slowed down cycle time. 

At that time, the mining services team was using only ground water to control dust on very arid land. All of their water trucks were being run at maximum capacity, and they had even bought new trucks to expand the fleet and keep the dust down. 

As they increased the frequency of watering, they noticed another problem. 

“Once you apply water to a road, it evaporates and afterwards you’ve got no stability in that road infrastructure,” says Alex McHaffie, General Manager, Bind-X. 

“GCO has got some of the better road construction teams that I’ve seen across Africa, and they take a lot of pride in managing their roads the right way,” he explains. 

Losing fines from the road surface forced them to frequently re-lay the wearing course layer, trapping them in an endless maintenance cycle.  

Trialling bitumen emulsion and biological dust control

The team at GCO decided to trial different dust control options to conserve water and stabilise the roads.  

They had already tried bitumen-based emulsion products and were reasonably happy with the road stabilisation and dust control results. However, it’s expensive, especially to get the product into West Africa. And there were other challenges like shipping and handling bituminous liquids on site. From an environmental standpoint, there were concerns about the risk of water and soil contamination. 

Eramet had recently discovered a new, cleaner option — biological dust control — that had just won the Responsible Mining Innovation Challenge. This is a new method of dust control by Bind-X that binds the upper road layer, forming a stable cement-like structure in the soil. Made from a natural bio-based technology, it’s completely clean for the soil and waterways. Solidifying as hard as bitumen, it improves rolling resistance on the road surface, and dust fallout.  

They decided to trial the biological method on an extremely dusty 3 km section of primary haul road, and a smaller section of secondary road, over 3 months. The well-built road was laterite on top of a chert bed, built to handle heavy vehicles passing once every minute.   

They applied it two ways:

  •  Building it into the road surface
  • Spraying it on top of the existing road

The results

Three months later, the water trucks were no longer running at full capacity. The GCO team had reduced water use on the roads to just 36,000 litres on average per day — a 85% reduction.


“We drastically reduced water truck trips from three times a day to once every third day,” said Alex.


Also, onsite dust monitoring data showed a three-fold reduction in dust fallout.

18 months on, GCO now uses it routinely across the site.


“It had a huge impact on water usage,” says Alex. “Not to mention, they reduced chemical use on site, and reduced the ongoing cost to manage the roads.”


Because Bind-X’s biological product is a solid powder-based product, not a liquid, the operations team finds it easier to handle on site. And it eases logistics, too. Where they would ship two and a half containers, they now ship one container to treat a similar area on the mine.

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Water scarcity makes mining more difficult. Why do we waste so much on dust control?

article



Cape Town in South Africa famously endured five years of water scarcity, with inhabitants limited to 50 litres each per day – just enough for a quick shower, two litres of drinking water, one sink of dishes or laundry, one cooked meal, two hand washings and a toilet flush. Just this year, we saw similar shortages in places as diverse as Spain, Mexico and Zambia.

The global mining industry is already facing the consequences of growing water scarcity. In Australia, there is mounting community and government pressure for mine sites to use less water and manage it better.

In Chile, several mines recently had to stop operations altogether and find costly alternatives when a drought made fresh water unavailable.

More than half of all the world’s copper mines will be at risk of being shut down by drought by 2050, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Lithium and cobalt are at even higher risk of drought exposure — 74% of sites are expected to be affected.

Martin Spitznagel
Chairman of the Board and Founder at Bind-X

“We have to prepare for the fact there are going to be another billion people added to the planet over the next 10 to 15 years, which will make it even more tricky to manage water in all areas of society and business,”

The need to act now to avoid future pain 

Martin Spitznagel, Chairman of the Board and Founder at Bind-X, says we in the mining sector need to be taking action to cut down on wasting water before it gets more expensive and more threatening to day-to-day operations.

“We have to prepare for the fact there are going to be another billion people added to the planet over the next 10 to 15 years, which will make it even more tricky to manage water in all areas of society and business,” Martin says.

“It’s going to be the most precious resource. That obviously affects mining, because water management is already one of the most important aspects when you’re running an existing or setting up a new project.”

While new projects are having to account for water savings, existing sites have less and less water available.

It doesn’t help that water allocation prices in Australia are shooting up and that more frequent water scarcity and drought is likely to drive water prices even higher for miners. Water entitlements across New South Wales increased in value from around AU$29 billion in 2021 to an estimated AU$34 billion in 2023 — a 17% increase in two years. If water wastage isn’t curbed, existing mines may struggle to keep their licence to operate and new projects will become unviable. 

Martin says that, while many key operations on a mine are always going to be water hungry — most process plants require large amounts of water, for example — there is one area where savings can be made right now.  

Billions of litres wasted on dust control

“Depending on the conditions of the mining area, dust control can be the main consumer of available water and is a key area where we could be using less. When you use plain water to keep the dust down, you may need to spray your roads and other areas up to five or six times a day. We’re talking billions of litres of water wasted every year.”

Most miners see water as the default option for dust suppression on roads, a hangover from a time when water was plentiful and cheap. Estimates suggest 70% of Australian mines are still using water alone, even as shortages loom and prices rocket. When you consider that the average site has between 50 and 100 km of roads, the amount of fresh water being thrown on the ground looks staggering.

It’s also not hard to come up with a realistic estimate. Using conservative numbers, let’s say the average site has only 50 km of roads, each 10 metres wide. Typically, water trucks apply a minimum of 2 litres of water per square metre of road. This can be more than five times per day but again, let’s use a conservative application frequency of twice per day.

That equates to 2 million litres of water per day. 730 million litres every year (of course, depending on climatic seasonalities).

With more than 350 operating mines in Australia, it’s likely that more than 250 billion litres of water gets poured onto dirt roads every year. And that’s just roads. We’re not even accounting for stockpiles, tailings, and open areas.

What’s the alternative? 

Smart mine operators have begun to adapt to a changed environment. Many of them are now looking into less water-hungry alternatives for dust control. These include bitumen emulsions, polymers, salts and lignosulfonates, all of which have their own drawbacks and can still place heavy demands on your water allocation, not to mention your bottom line.  

There is a new approach which has proven to slash water usage without reliance on crude oil-based or chemical products. Biological dust control removes the need to constantly rewater your roads by using microbes that bind the dust together, turning it into solid rock. These mineral-based bonds hold the dust particles together to form a smooth, solid surface and prevent them from becoming airborne. Martin says mines using this biological method have seen a dramatic reduction in water usage. 

Most mines cut water consumption by more than 90% and significantly improve the road quality when they switch from plain water to biological dust control. It’s because you have a binding approach, not only a wettening approach, with a positive impact on the needed application frequency.  

Cutting back on spraying roads reduces immediate operational pressure and, in the long run, will ensure that you can use your water budget for the process plant and reduce your risk of being impacted by shortages.  

Reduce carbon emissions to break the cycle 

It’s not just water that these sites are saving. Less frequent watering means less trucks and less fuel burned. When your trucks are out on the road all day, spraying a scarce resource, their emissions are compounding the problem by contributing to the climate change that is driving water shortages in the first place.

Martin says biological dust suppression promises to end that vicious circle.

“Why do we have a water problem?” Martin says.

“Besides human behaviour and mismanagement it’s mainly due to CO2 in the atmosphere and global warming leading to climate changes and desertification. If by saving water you have an indirect impact on reducing CO2 emissions, it means in the long run that you are also reducing the pressure from water scarcity.”

Water scarcity is a serious threat to mining operations. Taking action today to cut back on water wasted means you are setting your site up for tomorrow — and maybe even helping ease restrictions that promise to make operations more and more costly.

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70% of WA mines rely on plain water for dust control. Is it sustainable? 

article



Water scarcity is an escalating concern in Western Australia, particularly in arid mining regions. The mining industry in WA consumes approximately 1,000 GL of water annually. Across Australia, this number climbs to over 1,500 GL per year, a water footprint equivalent to 600 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Between dust suppression, drinking water, and dewatering, the volume of water removed from the ground is significant. Over 70 percent of WA mines still rely on plain water for dust control. This traditional approach, though widely used, is both inefficient and unsustainable in a state where water scarcity is more of an issue every year.

Operations manager
GCO Senegal

“We are reaping the rewards of implementing Bind-X on our mine. It’s reduced dust for the local community, is far less maintenance on our haul roads, and is cleaner for the environment.”

The pressure on water resources in WA mining

One of the biggest challenges facing the mining industry in WA’s Goldfields is water scarcity, according to an article by ABC News, where current shortages are described as a “key limitation on growth”. 

Similar issues exist in the Pilbara, where people have called for a more sustainable approach to groundwater management.

Regions like Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Pilbara illustrate the urgency of sustainable water use. In Kalgoorlie, the city council recently began reviewing its water contracts with local mines, reflecting rising concerns over equitable water distribution. 

In an interview with the Australian Water Association, GHD Technical Director Bob Kinnell says it’s important to start looking at the impact of the industry’s water use on the catchments in the Pilbara, but also to consider how mining operations manage water in the future.

“The region gets the odd cyclone, but otherwise the aquifers do not get any significant recharge. The volume of water removed is much bigger than the volume of water coming in. Some of the consequences of this movement will last for a long time,” he explains. 

Dust suppression—an important aspect of mining operations—accounts for a significant portion of water use. In fact, plain water applied to roads, stockpiles, and processing areas is often the largest single use of water in many operations. This approach not only wastes an irreplaceable resource but also fails to address the broader environmental and regulatory challenges. 

Traditional dust control methods are unsustainable

Plain water might seem like a simple solution, but it’s far from efficient. In dry conditions, much of the water evaporates almost immediately, needing frequent reapplication. This continuous cycle leads to significant water wasted while offering only temporary relief from dust. It poses serious environmental risks, including groundwater depletion and the disruption of local ecosystems.  “It’s not going to be replenished. That water you use will eventually be gone and you need to prioritise what to use it for,” explains Krehenbrink.  “Most of the water used in mining for dust suppression comes from sources that are not sustainable. When you’re pumping millions of liters of water a day, it’s a huge environmental cost.”  And while the amount of water sprayed on mining operations depends on soil and local conditions, on average, a one kilometre road will consume hundreds of thousands of litres of water a day exclusively for dust control.

Krehenbrink says a slew of economic and environmental implications result, including the expense to keep trucks running and a hefty carbon footprint. Allocating water towards dust control limits the availability of water for vital operations at the mine – to extract and process minerals.   

He refers to examples globally where mining industry water consumption during severe droughts has caused major problems. 

 “In the last few years in Chile, we have seen access to water preventing mines from operating, because there is just not enough water. There are caps on how much water they are allowed to use.”   

He hypothesises that persisting with outdated dust suppression methods will see a future where mining in certain regions is rendered impossible.   

“The access to water will be regulated or just not available,” says Krehenbrink.   

Dust control is an essential task for mines to ensure road visibility and decrease the chance of workers and the community inhaling airborne particles. However, it is a task that can be completed with greater care for the planet and people by relying on new and proven biotechnology methods.  

New technology: Biological dust control

New dust control technology like biological dust control offers a far better alternative to traditional methods. Developed at Murdoch University in WA, Bind-X’s new and proven technology uses natural, biodegradable, and non-toxic compounds to bind dust particles, significantly reducing the need for water.  Micro-organisms react with dust and dirt and cause sand particles to fuse and create a solid cement-like layer. Mines already applying the product use 90% less water, making it one of the easiest and most impactful steps toward meeting water reduction targets. Additionally, this approach is safer for the environment, as it avoids the use of crude-oil or industrial waste products that can harm ecosystems.  Grand Cote Operations in Senegal trialled Bind-X on their haul roads and now use 85% less water and 60,000 less litres of diesel. 

Broader ESG benefits

The switch to advanced dust control methods extends beyond water conservation.
 Krehenbrink emphasises, “When mines adopt modern approaches like biological dust control, the benefits cascade across the operation—from water savings to reduced emissions. It’s not just about compliance; it’s about leading the way in sustainable mining.”  For environmental managers, the path forward is clear. Addressing water scarcity is no longer optional, it’s a necessity for environmental approvals, to meet regulatory standards, and keep operations running smoothly. Dust control is an area where immediate and significant improvements can be made. 
 

WA’s mines can reduce their water dependency, protect precious aquifers, and set an example for sustainable mining practices worldwide. As the challenges of water scarcity intensify, the question remains: Is relying on plain water enough? The evidence suggests it’s time for a smarter solution. 

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