Maldon is only the processing facility for the ore from the A1...

Maldon is only the processing facility for the ore from the A1 Mine. Ore is trucked by contractor to the Maldon site. A trip of about 4 hrs by car and a bit more than that by truck. About 70kms is on dirt roads that are tight and twisty all the way.

Waste is moved/removed at a cost to the company so, in answer to your question, no; it needs to either be used to backfill areas underground or be carted to a waste dump on surface.

It's possible that Union Hill or Nuggety may become producing mines in the future and seeing as how they're located close to the mill at Maldon, cost per ounce would be dramatically decreased. Without having intimate knowledge of the 2 sites mentioned I couldn't say for sure but I assume as part of the feasability study and permitting process an adequately sized waste dump would be incorporated into the study.

As for A1, it's pretty much a case of diminishing returns when it comes to the waste rock.

Large scale mechanized mining traditionally runs decline sizes in the vicinity of 5mW x 5.5mH or a variation of. Access drives to the ore may be smaller but it's still all waste (or should be) until you hit the orebody. It's got to go somewhere. Space on surface is at a premium.

The traditional/historical mining at A1 has been, for the most part, airleg which means that even though there's plenty of voids underground, they're not like longhole stopes that are much larger, uniform voids and are able to be backfilled reasonably easy.

Hope that gives you some better insight into the situation.

Cheers.