page_title: Spoil tip
section_title: Environmental effects
hierarchical_section_title: Spoil tip / Environmental effects
caption_attribution_description: Notera Av dokumentationsskäl har originalbeskrivningen från Riksantikvarieämbetet behållits. Tillrättalägganden och alternativa beskrivningar bör införas separat från nedanstående information.Felaktigheter kan även anmälas till denna sida.100 meter hög slagghög. Bilden troligen från mitten av 1970-talet.
context_page_description: A spoil tip is a pile built of accumulated spoil – waste material removed during mining. These waste materials are typically composed of shale, as well as smaller quantities of carboniferous sandstone and various other residues. Spoil tips are not formed of slag, but in some areas, such as England and Wales, they are referred to as slag heaps.
  The term "spoil" is also used to refer to material removed when digging a foundation, tunnel, or other large excavation. Such material may be ordinary soil and rocks, or may be heavily contaminated with chemical waste, determining how it may be disposed of. Clean spoil may be used for land reclamation.
  Spoil is distinct from tailings, which is the processed material that remains after the valuable components have been extracted from ore.
context_section_description: Spoil tips sometimes increased to millions of tons, and, having been abandoned, remain as huge piles today. They trap solar heat, making it difficult (although not impossible) for vegetation to take root; this encourages erosion and creates dangerous, unstable slopes. Existing techniques for regreening spoil tips include the use of geotextiles to control erosion as the site is resoiled and simple vegetation such as grass is seeded on the slope.
  The piles also create acid rock drainage, which pollutes streams and rivers. Environmental problems have included surface runoff of silt, and leaching of noxious chemical compounds from spoil banks exposed to weathering. These cause contamination of ground water, and other problems.
  In the United States current state and federal mining regulations require that the earth materials from excavations be removed in such a fashion that they can be replaced after the mining operations cease in a process called mine reclamation, with oversight of mining corporations. This requires adequate reserves of monetary bonds to guarantee a completion of the reclamation process when mining becomes unprofitable or stops. (See for example, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977.)
caption: Erosion clearly visible in this spoil tip called Kvarntorpshögen, in Kvarntorp, Närke, Sweden, in the 1970s
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