Rehabilitation costs paid by mining enterprises in Turkey: Comparison of rehabilitation costs with their shares in mining operation costs and other environmental costs

Environmentally sustainable mining operations are becoming more and more important today. In this respect, the shares of different environmental costs paid by mining enterprises in mine operating costs are of interest. In Turkey, mining administrations collect environmental costs such as forestry costs and environmental compliance fees from mining enterprises using different calculation methods. Mining waste management costs and rehabilitation costs, on the other hand, are the costs that mining enterprises spend independently from mining administrations during the mining operating period to ensure compliance with the legislation. Among these, rehabilitation activities, which are considered at the center of the study, are evidence that mining enterprises are mining in harmony with the environment in a sustainable framework with their specific activity stages. Rehabilitation costs spent for rehabilitation activities are costs made at different stages of mining operations. In Turkey, rehabilitation costs are spent by mining enterprises on their initiative, but ignored by the administrations and the public. Because these costs are not paid to the administrations, the public can't have information about how much money is spent. The calculation of the ratio of this cost to the operating cost by considering the duration of mining operations may help the administrations to determine the optimum calculation methods of environmental costs in the presence of other environmental costs and to consider these costs in total. In this study, it is aimed to see environmental costs as a whole by emphasizing the rehabilitation costs of mining enterprises. It is also aimed to contribute to the post-mining sustainable land use process and forestland use. Accordingly, the ratio of rehabilitation costs contributing to used and returned forest areas to operating costs was considered and compared to each other in order for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to reconsider the calculation methods of different types of forest costs charged from mining enterprises. In this way, this study also aims to raise awareness about the costs charged by the administrations from the enterprises and how much these costs constitute a total cost in the eyes of different ministries & administrations in terms of the annual costs of the enterprises. To this end, rehabilitation costs, waste management costs, environmental compliance fees, and forestry fees were compared together with their ratios to operating costs, and their changes according to mineral groups were analyzed. This study provides recommendations to policymakers on the nature and management of different environmental costs of mining enterprises that spend on environmentally compatible mining. This study also calculates rehabilitation costs per 1 ha of mining permit area and ton of mineral production. The study also analyzed whether rehabilitation costs are related to the area of forest used and returned, forest quality, and the level of importance of recreational forest use in cities. Additionally, an assessment was made as to whether rehabilitation costs also increase as these areas increase in total.