An estimated 3 Mio. m3 of material have been dumped at more than 200 sites around the inactive Bleiberg-Kreuth mining area, Carinthia. Lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), molybdenum (Mo), cadmium (Cd) and germanium (Ge) have been extracted from carbonate-hosted Pb-Zn ores. Mineralogical and chemical analysis of the dump material was performed in the framework of a COMET-Project (Competence Network for the Assessment of Metal-Bearing By-Products, short: COMMBY) at the Montanuniversität Leoben in cooperation with the project partner GKB-Bergbau GmbH. The aim of the work is to determine the metal concentrations of the dumps at Matthäus, Glück and Altstefanie. The comparison of different analytical methods plays a big role in evaluation. Therefore, chemical analysis by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is compared with portable XRF (pXRF). Used in the field, pXRF shows very different values compared to XRF on fused beads and pXRF on powdered samples. The representative material from the Matthäus dump analyzed with XRF on fused beads contains 0,09 % Mo, 0,54 % Zn und 0,30 % Pb as an average of all sampling points. For mineralogical characterisation a scanning electron microscope and the program SmartPITM from ZEISS were used. This “Smart Particle Investigation” enables the measurement of an area of particles with graphical illustration and automated assignment to a mineral. The most important metals are bound to the minerals wulfenite (Mo, Pb), galenite (Pb), cerussite (Pb), sphalerite (Zn, Cd, Ge) and smithsonite (Zn). These are found mainly in samples with grain sizes <1 mm. However, at grain sizes <0.3 mm the metal-rich particles are mostly separated from the surrounding rock. Some of the heavy metals are bound to poorly soluble, fine-grained iron-oxyhydroxides. In the coarser fractions, the valuable mineral phases are embedded in the carbonate host rock, or within gangue minerals. In addition, the operational guide handbook of the SmartPITM software was updated. The combination of chemical and mineralogical investigations with mineral processing methods enables a reassessment of the dump material as a probable future source of raw materials.