The aim of mine tailings management strategy is to protect the environment and humans from risks associated with mine tailings. It seems inevitable that future production from lower grade ores in mines will increase, generating a higher tonnage of tailings. Approximately 14 billion tonnes of tailings were produced globally by the mining industry in 2010. The need for a comprehensive framework for mine tailings management (including dewatering) that promotes sustainable development is therefore becoming increasingly recognised by the mining industry. In this paper, we review existing frameworks for tailings management and propose an improved framework that considers key sustainable development pillars: technological, economic, environmental, policy, and social aspects. This framework will be able to guide the mining sector to choose its mine tailings management strategy based on sustainable development concepts. It incorporates a range of tools for determining trade-offs inherent in different tailings management methods during operation and throughout the Life of Mine (LOM); these include Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Net Present Value (NPV), Hierarchy System Model (HSM), and Decision Analysis. In particular, this proposed recognises the highly casespecific of tailings management by explicitly integrating physicochemical characterisation of tailings properties as a first step. In future, the framework could be expanded through integration of reuse/recycle principles of industrial symbiosis.
Pupuk urea adalah merupakan salah satu jenis pupuk yang paling banyak digunakan oleh petani di Indonesia. Total penggunaan pupuk urea selama tahun 2018 yang tercatat pada Kementerian Perindustrian Indonesia adalah sejumlah 6,27 Juta ton atau mengalami peningkatan 5% dari tahun sebelumnya. Salah satu pabrik yang menghasilkan pupuk urea adalah PT Pupuk Kujang di Cikampek Jawa Barat. Tujuan dari studi ini adalah untuk mengidentifikasi dampak lingkungan potensial yang dihasilkan dari produksi 50 Kg pupuk urea. Metode yang digunakan dalam kajian dampak daur hidup (Life Cycle Impact Assessment) adalah CML-IA dengan 11(sebelas) parameter yaitu abiotic depletion dan abiotic depletion (fossil fuel), global warming (GWP100), ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, fresh water dan marine aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, photochemical oxidation, acidification, dan eutrophication, Adapun batasan sistem menggunakancradle to grave yang memperhitungakn bahan dasar, proses produksi, transportasi dan pengelolaan limbah (karung bekas pupuk). Dari hasil analisa didapatkan bahwa proses produksi memberikan kontribusi dampak paling besar dibandingkan dengan pengelolaan limbah sisa karung (landfill). Proses produksi memberikan kontribusi terhadap dampak potensial lingkungan pada kisaran 99,14 – 100 persen dari total dampak yang di hasilkan. Sebagai tambahan bahwa dampak yang ditimbulkan pada proses di pabrik ammonia akan memberikan kontribusi lebih besar pada kisaran 22-37 persen lebih besar dibandingkan dengan proses di pabrik urea.Dari hasil analisa dengan memanfaatkan grafik jaringan (networking graph) pada program SimaPro juga menunjukkan bahwa environmental hotspotsdari daur hidup pupuk urea disebabkan oleh penggunaan gas alam, katalis molybdenum, penggunaan listrik dari Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), penggunaan polypropylene dalam material karung, dan transportasi. Dengan mempertimbangan environmental hotspot maka tindakan perbaikan berkelanjutan perlu dilakukan baik berupa audit energi maupun pengelolaan penggunaan katalis.
The production of palm oil biodiesel in Indonesia has the potential to negatively impact the environment if not managed properly. Therefore, we conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) study on the production of palm oil biodiesel to assess the environmental performance in Indonesia. Using an LCA approach, we analyzed the environmental indicators, including the carbon footprint, as well as the harm to human health, ecosystem diversity, and resource availability in palm oil biodiesel production. The functional unit in this study was 1 ton of biodiesel. The life cycle of palm oil biodiesel production consists of three processing units, namely the oil palm plantation, palm oil production, and biodiesel production. The processing unit with the greatest impact on the environment was found to be the oil palm plantation. The environmental benefits, namely the use of phosphate, contributed 62.30% of the 73.40% environmental benefit of the CO2 uptake from the oil palm plantation processing unit. The total human health damage of the life cycle of palm oil biodiesel production was 0.00563 DALY, while the total ecosystem’s diversity damage was 2.69 × 10−5 species·yr. Finally, we concluded that the oil palm plantation processing unit was the primary contributor of the carbon footprint, human health damage, and ecosystem diversity damage, while the biodiesel production processing unit demonstrated the highest damage to resource availability.
Mining is a water and energy intensive industry, and reducing water and energy consumption are two important issues in the quest for more sustainable industrial production. The aim of this paper is to assess the correlation between water and energy requirements in various tailings disposal strategies (on a per cent solids-based analysis). Two main methods are used: rheology testing and a system modelling approach. A coal mine site in Australia was chosen as a case study to apply five tailings disposal options. These five options are differentiated by the percentage of solids in the tailings ranging from 30% to 70%. The rheology analysis indicated that the coal mine tailings with 65-70% solids are not pumpable and these two options are beyond the scope of this study. The results of the analyses show that the optimal scheme process in terms of water saving, water management, and energy consumption involved tailings with 50% mass solids. The implementation of this option resulted in both lower water transport (15,532 ML/y) and energy consumption (34.7 TJ/y). This option also reduced the overall flows of water to the Tailings Storage Facility by 30%.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.