Reducing waste and improving recycling are essential for sustainable development. Responsible disposal of the waste we produce is crucial for the local environment, host communities and the continuity of our operations. We minimize the potential impact of the waste our operations generate through technological innovations and improvements. This includes increasing the conversion rate of raw materials and the output of our products, recovering or recycling waste at the end of the process, and storing it properly to prevent contamination.

• By 2030, the reuse rate of non-hazardous waste will have increased by 5% compared with our 2020 levels
• By 2030, the emission intensity of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides will drop by 5% compared with our 2020 levels

We strictly abide by China’s environmental protection laws and regulations, including the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste”, the “Pollution Control Standard for General Industrial Solid Waste Storage and Landfill”, the “Pollution Control Standard for Hazardous Waste Storage”, and other relevant national environmental protection laws and regulations where our subsidiaries are located. We adopt the best international practices to manage our waste emissions and adhere to the IFC’s “Environment, Health and Safety General Guidelines”. Our Board and management have integrated waste management into our environmental target management system, based on our responsibility for emission performance and our emission reduction strategy.

We conduct leaching tests on mining waste according to the standards and requirements of host countries. They are designed to determine whether the waste will dissolve and release toxic and harmful substances after long-term immersion, weathering, and stacking, and if it poses possible risks to the surrounding environment, communities, and water bodies. For solid waste which entails relatively high risks, it is treated as hazardous. For solid waste which entails low risks, it is treated as non-hazardous. We use the most stringent benchmarks to identify and manage risks posed by our emissions, to prevent environmental incidents caused by incorrect disposal.

To protect the health and safety of our employees, contractors, and surrounding communities by maintaining a good environment and preventing the release of dust, we have put in place scientific dust prevention and control measures for various operational areas. These include underground ventilation and dust removal systems, dust control during ore crushing and conveyor belt operations, dust collectors, and dust-removal sprayers for open-pit blasting or haulage operations. We also recover resources from the large amounts of flue gas and dust generated by smelters. This not only prevents the waste of resources but also significantly reduces air pollutant emissions and minimizes the environmental impact of our production activities. The economic benefits generated from resource recovery further incentivize various projects to continuously improve the reuse of waste heat and the recovery of resources from nitrogen and sulfur oxides, as well as dust.

Our hazardous waste comes mainly from the smelting process, including used engine oil, hazardous waste from gold smelting (cyanide slag), copper smelting (lead filter cake, white smoke, arsenic filter cake, copper telluride slag, etc.), and lead smelting (lead-silver slag, alum slag, etc.). We strictly follow the pollution prevention and control requirements of relevant laws and regulations of the host countries and track materials throughout their life cycle. We use non-toxic, non-hazardous, or low-toxicity and low-hazard raw materials to replace highly toxic and hazardous ones, while optimizing production processes and equipment to improve resource recovery, thereby reducing the amount of hazardous waste generated from the source. Additionally, we standardize transportation, storage, use and disposal of hazardous materials to reduce generation of hazardous waste.