A much-repeated quote (often attributed to the environmentalist David Suzuki) is that “in nature, there’s no such thing as waste”. Indeed, the very oxygen we breathe is a by-product of the first photosynthetic organisms, and a team of MIT researchers recently found evidence that organisms evolved to use this oxygen ‘waste’ soon after cyanobacteria began to produce it around 2.9 billion years ago. Nature’s ability to solve problems and put the by-products of one process to use elsewhere has fed the rise of nature-based solutions and biomimicry as an innovation strategy across many sectors. “Evolution is a 3.8-billion-year research and development programme,” explains Dr Samantha McGaughey, a researcher at the Australian National University (ANU) who is working on a plant-inspired filtration system. In mining, this has traditionally taken the form of constructed wetlands, and at Water in Mining 2026, Orla Musselwhite’s Felix Abanto Trujillo will look back at 25 years of wetland treatment at the Musselwhite gold mine in Canada. To supplement and expand this work, startups and academics alike are now collaborating with the industry to deliver a new generation of nature-inspired water treatment solutions. Wetlands-in-a-box “Constructed wetlands are not always easy to create in certain places,” explains Dr Sue Robson, partnerships and engagement lead at Syrinx, an Australian company that has been constructing wetlands for over 25 years and has created the EnPhytoBox, a transportable, nature-based water treatment solution. “By modularising and containerising what are essentially wetlands and integrating IoT, sensor, and decision-making technology, EnPhytoBox can go beyond what a constructed wetland may be able to achieve.” These ‘wetland-in-a-box’ systems (Syrinx has actually trademarked the name) can fit into a relatively small area on sites with constrained footprints. They are also stackable and can be transported into position on the back of a 40-foot truck. For especially remote sites they could even be flown in by helicopter – although the company has yet to test this in practice. Within the boxes, the system consists of layers of plants, microbes, and bio-sorbents. The plants are local to the site and are harvested for use as a soil improver before they become contaminated. IoT equipment, together with sensor technology, determines the best time for harvesting the plants through an automated and remotely operated system. The IoT system and decision-making platform enable the generation of reports for clients to adhere to any regulatory or mandatory reporting. EnPhytoBox can tackle multiple pollutants in a range of mining wastewaters, including process water and tailings water. It can also operate as an add-on to traditional constructed wetlands, especially where fluctuations in water volume occur. One particularly promising use case is in legacy mines, as the system has low energy usage and can operate remotely – as an individual unit, in series, or to augment existing water treatment infrastructure. Syrinx is already in discussion with multiple tier one mining companies an has recently completed a project with the Minerals Research Institute of WA, which looked specifically at using the technology on tailings dam water. Leveraging the deep time of plant evolution The secret behind the efficiency of wetlands as a water treatment solution lies ultimately in the molecular mechanisms of plants – and researchers are now replicating those mechanisms in the lab. “Plants can't get up and leave when the environment isn’t very favourable for their growth,” explains Dr McGaughey of ANU. “Because of this, they've needed to adapt and evolve all sorts of different selective mechanisms to gain access to the nutrients and micronutrients that they need, while either excluding or compartmentalising different molecules that might be toxic.” These ancient adaptations were the inspiration for research conducted by Dr McGaughey and Professor Caitlin Byrt (also of ANU), in collaboration with a global mining company. The team is programming plant-inspired proteins to selectively separate and extract specific high-purity minerals and metals from mining wastewater. This could not only clean dirty water but provide new revenue streams for mining companies, including from legacy sites. “Plants have needed to evolve a range of selective membrane transport proteins that we're using as inspiration to confer that super selective functionality in synthetic membranes,” Dr McGaughey explains. “Our team studies the structure of the mechanisms plants use in their membranes because you can then use the information about those structures to engineer technologies that can do similar processes,” Professor Byrt adds. The system, called Bioderived Element Resource Separation Technology (BERST), can incorporate different proteins, each targeting a specific metal or mineral. “We're targeting many critical resources, picking our way through the periodic table of elements,” explains Professor Byrt. “It's been prioritised by what industry needs,” she adds. “When we first started this journey, we were thinking about plants’ ability to selectively separate lithium because of the big demand for lithium. But through engaging with our industry partners, they drew our attention to building systems for harvesting copper, cobalt, nickel, and zinc and Rare Earth Elements” The technology is currently at the research stage, but the team is now focused on developing a prototype, with the goal of getting prototypes on-site within the next 12 to 18 months. Algal answers for site remediation Plants may be ancient, but algae are a separate and diverse group of organisms that actually emerged earlier in evolutionary history than land plants. A research team led by Australia’s CSIRO, in collaboration with the University of Queensland and Murdoch University, has explored the environmental and economic potential of algae technology for both operational and closed mines – including in mine water treatment. Algae can either directly remove contaminants as they grow, or act as a driver of other biological processes such as sulphate reduction. The mechanism used depends on the exact quality and chemistry of water at a specific site. “Many Australian mine sites have poor water quality, often with high levels of sulphate or metals,” explains CSIRO Senior Principal Research Scientist Dr Anna Kaksonen. “If algae can help improve the water quality, it can be an important tool for water treatment.” On the economic side, the study found that algal biomass from mine sites could be used to produce bioplastics, biofuels, pigments. or animal feed, although this is dependent on the exact algal species and the condition of a specific mine. The project involved strong industry-academia collaboration, bringing together expertise from South32, Fortescue, Rio Tinto, Heidelberg Materials, Energy Australia, the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner, and the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia (MRIWA). From modularised wetlands to the molecular mechanisms of plants and algae, mining innovators are harnessing the design power of evolution to solve the economic and environmental problems of today.