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The Ada Tepe gold mine near Krumovgrad in southern Bulgaria illustrates how waste management can be built into a project's design from the start rather than left until closure.
The approach combines waste rock and processing tailings in an integrated facility, with the aim of reducing the land footprint, recovering water, progressively rehabilitating land and monitoring waste over the long term.
The mine began production in 2019 and ended mining activity in July 2026 before entering rehabilitation. Its environmentally sensitive setting, including proximity to protected areas and a protected aquifer near the Krumovitsa River, made careful waste-facility design particularly important.