Creating Value with the Future in Mind - Anglo American South Africa

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Waste utilisation
At our Phosphates operation in
Brazil, we are employing our
approach of ‘reduce, re-use, recycle’
on an industrial scale to improve
the way we utilise waste products.
As one of the largest producers
of phosphate fertilisers in Brazil,
Anglo American produces around
1.35 million tonnes (Mt) of phosphate
concentrate every year to facilitate its
production. As a result, the effluent
treatment plant associated with
the fertiliser production process
generates around 7,800 tonnes of
phosphate waste annually. The waste
comes in the form of a cake rich in
P 2 O 5 – a powerful desiccant and
dehydrating agent.
Despite the potentially beneficial
properties of the waste material,
only about 20% of this cake was
previously available to be re-used,
namely in the granulation stage of
the phosphate fertiliser production
process. The remainder was either
sold as a low-value by-product or
disposed – raising environmental
concerns. However, following a
series of lab and industrial scale
tests and much persistence from the
team at Cubatão, results showed that
the phosphate waste could also be
used in the acidulation process – the
first stage in the fertilisermanufacturing
process – reducing
the need for new water and creating
value from a waste material.
After the success of the tests, the
new technique also entered full-scale
production at Catalão in March 2012,
achieving savings of 48,000 tonnes
of phosphate concentrate in 2012
as a result. We also saw a saving of
over 13 million litres of water in acid
dilution and a reduction of 10 tonnes
of CO 2 emissions at the drying plant.
As well as reducing production
costs, this research and development
is set to have long-term benefits
for the environment. Recent figures
show that the amount of phosphate
waste recovered and re-used has
increased to 40% – a figure which
could rise to 60% in the future –
and the amount of waste disposed
of in the environment has
decreased accordingly.
Images
01 Processing plant and water treatment area at
Phosphates’ Cubatão operation in São Paulo
state, Brazil.
02 Featured in Phosphates’ chemical laboratory
at Cubatão, Brazil, is Thiago Araujo, who was
an Applaud Sustainability finalist in 2012 for
developing a process to extract value from
waste slurry.
Currently, there is no cost-effective
solution available to recycle waste
tyres from our operations. We are
working with a company that is
developing a solution to turn these
tyres into value-added products such
as fuels. This may also provide an
investment opportunity for our new
Zimele Green Fund.
Engagement and partnerships
We are increasingly recycling
non-mineral waste and identifying
opportunities to engage local
communities in projects that deliver
considerable social benefits.
At El Soldado in Chile, for instance,
workshops were held in the local town
of El Melón to teach local women skills
to use waste pallets and paper from our
copper mine to create furniture and
craft paper products. The project
has significantly reduced waste from
the operation and has given more
than 2,000 women new skills and
enterprise-development opportunities.
Our Union platinum mine in South
Africa has established the Vukuzenzele
waste recovery project, which was
implemented following the unsafe and
illegal scavenging that took place at
the operation’s landfill site by people
from a local informal settlement.
Mine employees engaged with the
community to better understand their
needs; the outcome is that the waste
reclaimers now have the ability to
carry out their searches safely and
with the opportunity to earn a
legitimate income.
Our performance
Fifty-four of our 126 large-volume
mineral residue facilities are currently
operative. The total number of mineral
residue facilities has decreased
following the sale of Scaw Metals’
operations in 2011 and 2012. During
the year, 69 facilities were audited and
no significant incidents of structural
integrity loss or environmental harm
related to spillages were recorded.
Where significant risks are identified,
measures are put in place to
address these.
Given the nature of our business,
we have focused our efforts on
mineral residue as our most material
waste-related risk. Reduction/
recycling targets related to nonmineral
waste have been set at the
discretion of individual business
units and operations.
Our aim is to ensure that our
performance in relation to air quality
remains within legal limits. Our most
material Group-wide air quality issue
relates to SO 2 emissions around our
copper and platinum smelters. These
amounted to 40,644 tonnes of SO 2 in
2012 (2011: 41,295 tonnes). In 2013,
we will begin to collect Group-wide
data on SO x and NO x emissions
associated with the combustion
of diesel and explosives. More
information on SO 2 emissions around
our platinum smelters is available in
the 2012 Platinum Integrated Report.
Managing our impact on the environment
Anglo American plc Sustainable Development Report 2012 67