Authorization and legal aspects of residue storage and reprocessing

The present chapter provides an overview of the Directives and Laws at the European level concerning the management of mining residues. This chapter provides initial indications about the volume of mining residues in Europe and focuses on the instruments adopted by the European Union to guarantee health, safety, and environmental protection. Afterwards, it addresses in detail the authorization issues both at the European and country levels, highlighting the operations from some representative countries. Based on this information, a critical analysis of the effective authorization issues for residue reprocessing is attempted. The analysis is accompanied by practical examples based on three case studies investigated within the framework of the INCO-Piles 2020 Project (EU fundings—EIT RawMaterials, Grant Agreement 19169). The conducted research shows how, at the moment, there is still no common legislative framework, aimed to favoring recovery and reprocessing; however, many seeds have been planted, which are expected to lead to multiple active operations in the near future, mainly pushed by Green Deal and European ecological transition.