Recultivation of mining waste dumps in the Ruhr area, Germany

In 1993 Ruhrkohle AG produced 41.9 million tons of coal and 19.1 million m3 of mining waste. Of this, 0.7 million m3 were used underground as stowing material, 4.7 million m3 was used commercially, while the remaining 13.7 million m3 required dumping. Efforts related to the use and disposal of the material up to now dumped are concentrating on applying technical methods to reduce the production of waste underground, on opening up new markets of this material, on utilization of mining waste as a building material, and on low-environmental-impact dumping. Since the late 1970s, the mining waste heaps in the Ruhr mining region have been conceived and designed as landscape structures, i.e. they are integrated into the landscape by means of careful planning and design, and are immediately planted with vegetation. 9 refs., 5 figs