“…In the late 1980s, the mine was abandoned, and the wastes were arranged on terraces or spread throughout the area. Previous studies have identified heavily Cu-contaminated soils and plants in the Pedra Verde mine (Perlatti et al, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2019). However, no study assessed the total amount of Cu potentially released by these wastes rock piles within the past 30 years, nor estimated the present potential that these piles still have to release copper for the environment.…”