Rio Tinto has announced a new partnership to process waste from legacy mine sites to support rehabilitation activities and restore natural environments.

The mining heavyweight is teaming up with Washington-based non-profit organisation Resolve to launch Regeneration.

It says the start-up will extract valuable minerals and metals from mine tailings, waste rock and water.

Earnings will be reinvested to help fund habitat restoration and closure activities, including at legacy and former mine sites.

Regeneration will also seek to create and trade biodiversity and carbon credits through the rehabilitation of land and the generation of environmental offsets.

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Rio Tinto has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Resolve to make an equity investment of $2 million in Regeneration.

It will also analyse its portfolio to identify potential opportunities for the first Regeneration project.

“Regeneration aims to turn ores and waste from previously mined areas into positive outcomes both economically and environmentally,” Rio Tinto global head of closure Peter Harvey said.

“It is an innovative and collaborative new vehicle to help effectively restore legacy mine sites and meet our closure commitments.”

International Council on Mining & Metals president Rohitesh Dhawan said Regeneration’s innovative approach offered the potential to apply a social enterprise model to address the key challenge of responsible mine closure.