The Super Pit is a standard rectangular open pit gold mine. An open pit mine works by extracting minerals from an open mine in the ground and relocating all the waste off-site. This method is only used when the mineral ore body being mined is close to the surface. If an ore body is too deep then often a tunnel mine method will be used instead. Most pits are mined to have steps on the sides to prevent avalanches on site and to help the excavation trucks out of the pit. 

Open pit mining is the most destructive type of mining because it displaces large areas of land, it releases different pollutants into the water and air depending on which mineral is being mined. It can also be very dangerous because of the long depths to the bottom.

Some of the negative effects include:

• Land clearing 

• Loss of animal diversity 

• Soil or water contamination 

• Releases dangerous gasses like carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, methane, or carbon dioxide 

The super pit mine affects all the air quality around the area. This is because of all the drilling and blasting of the ore body releases dust all around the sight, all the loading and unloading of the ore, and the crushing and conveying. 

The mining company responsible for the super pit gold mine is KCGM and so far they have put a greenbelt over 730 hectares and 210,000 trees in between the mine and the city to protect from dust problems and increase air quality. The KCGM plans until 2034 to add in new noise bunds to the boundary of the super pit gold mine to reduce noise pollution across the city.