Superior Coal sifts through tailing dams and coarse reject dumps to find saleable product, because it says coal mines generally only use the easily accessible coal and dump the rest of the material.

The company says this recovery process allows a reduced amount of rejected material to be placed in environmentally sustainable depositional sites and profit to be made from the recovered coal.

Superior Coal managing director Ross Garling believes all mines should become more environmentally conscious.

“We’re definitely on the green side of mining … the Government is really keen on what we do – we rehabilitate sites,” he said.

Superior Coal uses leading edge equipment to sift through the waste to get to the reusable material.

Garling said the most time consuming part of the process is testing the site to determine if the process will be financially viable.

“How long it takes depends on the deposit, depends on the project and what needs to be done,” he said.

Garling is confident his 14 years of experience in this area and his team of experts from a wide range of disciplines can tailor a program to suit the individual coal mine.

“It’s not easy what we do – we look at things from a lateral point of view to get a viable solution,” he said.

Sometimes the program will make no money for mines with the process only recovering enough coal to pay for the recovery operation.

However, the environment benefits and the existing reject dumps’ life will be extended – minimising the need for new land and expensive new rehabilitation bonds.