Mining has evolved in the 21st century into an indispensable industry that provides a variety of mineral products needed to sustain a modern society. To achieve efficiency, it has also grown into an integrated enterprise of enormous size, wielding substantial economic power. Tailings is essentially a fine-particle mine-waste byproduct. Its management has gone through major transformations in the last century. In early years tailings was disposed of out of sight and literally out of mind. However, due to the physical and chemical characteristics of tailings, this laissez-faire approach in...