A systematic increase in the demand for mineral raw materials combined with the difficulty of obtaining them from primary sources, made it necessary to use secondary ones including mineral waste. The effectiveness of the management of mineral waste stored in landfills and from current production depends on many factors. The most important ones include the legal regulations of this activity and the technical and organizational determinants of deposit exploitation, processing, and refining of minerals.
The paper analyzes the current waste (including mining waste) management regulations. The technological discrepancies in these regulations, as well as missing or inaccurate classifications, were demonstrated. The interchangeable use of notions: mining/mine and extractive/extraction is a primary source of problems. It also has to be noted that accompanying and joint minerals are not defined in appropriate legislation. Attention was also paid to the omission of important issues in these regulations, e.g. product structure, construction of anthropogenic deposits, etc. It was emphasized and demonstrated with examples that the comprehensive and rational exploitation of mineral deposits, combined with processing and refining of mineral raw materials is an effective way of using mineral waste. The obtained results allowed for formulating proposals regarding legal provisions regulating waste management and the recommendation of technical and organizational solutions for the activities of mining, processing, and refining of mineral raw materials.