Tailings closure has lacked a single authoritative reference. The SME Tailings Closure Handbook answers that gap: fourteen chapters by leading practitioners and researchers spanning landform design, surface water, hydrogeology, geotechnics, geochemistry, covers, ecology, economics, social, and governance. Synthesis across the disciplines produced more than the chapters alone: an integrating closure framework in which closure is a condition sustained across the facility life-cycle rather than a terminal event. Within the framework, an unbroken chain runs from closure vision through principles and objectives to verifiable success criteria; multiple accounts analysis governs transparent option selection; and the Closure Design Basis Report carries commitments across decades, generations, and phase transitions to relinquishment. The framework converts a familiar aspiration into a working method, allowing designers of new facilities to truly begin with the end in mind.