Environmental Aspects of Phosphate and Potash Mining United ...

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The Environmental Approach of the Phosphate Rock and Potash Mining Industry Magazines and Newsletters IMC Phosphate in Florida (USA) publishes the ‘Phosphator’ magazine on a monthly basis for its employees and other stakeholders. A wide range of articles on the activities of IMC Phosphate are featured. Environmental matters are dealt with in a regular column,‘The Green Piece’, or by feature articles. Office Chérifien des Phosphates in Morocco publish a company newsletter, “ P 2 O 5 ” on a regular basis. In June 2000, a special edition was published to communicate to the workforce information on the company's recent voluntary adoption of the “ Responsible Care” program. Notice board at the Tapira mining complex, displaying photographs taken during family open days - Fosfertil, Brazil 48 IMC ‘Phosphator’ magazine - IMC Phosphate, USA
Environmental Aspects of Phosphate and Potash Mining 4. Emerging Environmental Issues and Trends The environmental performance of the fertilizer raw material mining industry has improved over recent decades, as has that of other industry sectors. Significant causes include: Growing public awareness of environmental issues; Greater appreciation by companies of the environmental issues; Increasing regulation; Scientific and technical progress that permits resolution of some of the issues; Technological developments that improve environmental performance as a by-product of better efficiency. Today information is available much more easily than in the past, through media such as the Internet, while the understanding of the issues and of the underlying problems and linkages continues to progress. A number of emerging issues and trends may affect the industry in coming years, including: Consumers as a political and economic force; The public's demand for accountability and transparency across the board, for both businesses and government; Sensitivities about globalization; A multidisciplinary approach to resolving issues Ongoing public debate on what constitutes sustainability and good environmental performance; Increasingly stringent expectations of environmental performance; Scrutiny of business at a local and international level. As community awareness has grown, demands on industry have increased accordingly. In many countries, both industry and governments are becoming more accountable for the decisions and actions they take. This is partly because of the increased availability of information concerning their actions and more stakeholder involvement in the decision-making process. The general public increasingly demands involvement in decision-making on issues that affect them. This was evident in a variety of situations at the operations visited in preparation of the present report. Likewise the public is requiring companies to demonstrate their environmental (and social) performance. This requires an effective monitoring system to measure the impacts of a company's activities and often a reporting system to communicate their achievements to stakeholders. External, third party verification increases the plausibility of company statements and provides stakeholders with an independent assurance. A number of fertilizer mining companies are signatories to voluntary codes of practice such as the chemical industry's Responsible Care® program or The Australian Mining Industry Code for Environmental Management. These codes implicitly recognize the importance of monitoring and reporting. An independent international mining certification system to assess environmental management performance is an option to secure environmental accountability. In future, community concerns may shift away from a focus on environmental damage at the mine site to the need to balance competing demands for limited natural resources such as fresh water and agricultural land. The mining industry, as a consumer of natural resources, will not be isolated from these pressures. Foresight and the adoption of adequate and effective solutions to arising issues will assist the industry's response. Governments are responding to community pressure through new legislation. The European Union's Integrated Product policy is one such response. Policy implementation will lead to increasing producer responsibility for their products. It will also increase the use of market instruments to internalize the external environmental costs of products over their entire life cycle. This responsibility will concern not only companies' own activities but also those of their suppliers, transporters and service providers. What should companies do in order to meet these current and future challenges Several approaches to environmental issues are reviewed in Part 2 of the IFA/UNEP/UNIDO publication entitled “Environmental Management Systems”(7). Topics discussed include: Compliance with the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 series of standards; Environmental impact, risk and life cycle assessments; (7) See Appendix A for reference.
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Environmental Aspects of Phosphate
Page 4 and 5: Acknowledgements A number of people
Page 6 and 7: Preface This report on the environm
Page 8 and 9: Introduction 2 During recent decade
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Page 12 and 13: Overview of Phosphate Rock and Pota
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Page 42 and 43: Closure The Environmental Approach
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Page 68: www.unep.org United Nations Environ
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