The mining and processing industry relies on the avoidance of waste during mining, followed by the progressive removal of waste and contaminants via comminution and beneficiation during processing. Unfortunately the low grade of valuable content in most metalliferous operations dictates that vast quantities of associated host rock and gangue accompanies the valuable material to the processing plant. Waste rejection can be considered the flip side to mineral extraction, with the focus being on the development of a barren material stream that is rejected by the process, with minimal valuable metal contained. The key to a mine's economic success lies in the liberation of the metal from within the host rock with the smallest possible investment in capital expenditure and energy. Newcrest Mining Ltd., initiated an investigation into how waste rejection could be employed across their various operating mine sites and how it could be used in future operations. The total project examines a range of waste rejection techniques capable of deployment at coarser size ranges and these include systems based on, size, gravity, physical and chemical properties. This initiative is a component of the ongoing Newcrest strategy of re-working the research area of "mine to mill", to truly make it a system wide approach that looks at all the latent value opportunities. This paper provides analysis of sized based waste rejection work undertaken at the Newcrest Telfer site. The results of this study show that some process streams offer significant potential for waste rejection, but in most cases there is no 'one pass' waste rejection option. Rather the rejection process becomes a series of liberate-separate cycles. At each stage the altered physical characteristics of the material open different possibilities for rejection techniques. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.