For decades, the quiet risk of cyanide has sat at the heart of gold mining — tucked inside tailings ponds, buried in environmental assessments, and hovering over every community downstream from a processing facility. It works, everyone knows it works, but the pressure to find something better has never been higher. Regulatory scrutiny is tightening, public tolerance for processing risk is shrinking, and gold miners who once shrugged at the status quo are starting to look for another way.
Dundee Sustainable Technologies believes it has one. The Montreal-based firm is pushing its GreenGold process — a cyanide-free alternative — into a market that is increasingly receptive to change. For Northern Ontario operations, where environmental approvals are hard-won and community relationships are everything, the promise of faster recoveries without the liability of cyanide is more than a technical curiosity. It’s the kind of shift that could reshape how new projects get permitted and how existing operations manage their social licence to operate. In a region where gold mining is foundational — from Timmins to Red Lake to the emerging deposits circling the Ring of Fire corridor — processing technology isn’t just an engineering decision. It’s a community one.
The timing matters. In 2026, with critical mineral development accelerating and environmental expectations rising in step, the question of how gold is processed is landing in boardrooms and band councils alike. Whether Dundee’s technology can scale to meet the demands of Northern Ontario’s major producers remains to be seen, but the conversation has clearly shifted. The industry is no longer asking whether cyanide-free processing is possible. It’s asking how fast it can get there. Click here to read the full story.