The mining industry generates enormous volumes of process water and fine-grained waste — from coal slurries and chrome tailings to platinum filter cakes and sand wash effluent. At the II Effyia Engineering Workshop “Mining & Geosynthetics: A Safe, Efficient and Sustainable Way,” sponsored by Flint Technical Geosolutions, more than 200 mining and engineering professionals gathered to examine how geosynthetic solutions are reshaping the way mines handle water, waste, and closure.
The Problem
Wash plants generate large volumes of fine-grained slurry that cannot easily be discharged or stored using conventional methods. Traditional tailings ponds require significant land area, carry long-term environmental liability, and impose ongoing monitoring costs. Regulatory requirements across South Africa, Zimbabwe, and other mining-intensive regions are tightening.
The Solution: Geotextile Tube Dewatering
TITANTube® geotextile tubes offer a passive, low-energy dewatering solution across a wide range of mining waste streams. Mining slurry is pumped — with polymer conditioning — into large fabric tubes. Water passes through the geotextile at high flow rates while solids consolidate inside the tube.
Key advantages for mining: high-flow OS435 fabric · pressure relief bands · reinforced fill ports for abrasive conditions · seamless nose construction · multi-tier stacking to minimize footprint.
Mining Projects Across Southern Africa
FTG has deployed TITANTube® systems in a variety of applications including but not limited to: chrome wash plant, sand wash plant, coal wash plant, and platinum mining operations.
Beyond Dewatering: Cap Reinforcement for Mine Closure
FTG’s Flintex™ high-strength woven geotextile provides tensile reinforcement for mine closure capping — safely containing tailings lagoons and process waste impoundments at end-of-life.
