Helping our clients to reuse and decompress stockpiles and/or reduce costs related to final waste disposal management
Today the client can pay for another actor in the chain to manage and/or dispose of their waste, or accumulate it in their stockpiles at the sites.
Since 2022, Elecmetal's circular economy area was created with three objectives:
- Maximize the recovery of other products.
- Implement the polyform plant by developing a new type of 100% recovered grinding ball.
- Generate new businesses and business units from waste.
Regarding scrap separation, this is a plant that can differentiate between magnetite (ore) and the ball discarded from the grinding process. This initiative is in a testing phase. For this purpose, the plant was installed in central Chile, and it is expected to be moved shortly to the mining sites of our clients. It is estimated that the amount of waste to be recirculated could reach 80 thousand tons* per year, which can be sold to steel suppliers.
*Note: the estimated tons to be recirculated in both cases will depend on the plant configuration and production capacity.
Benefits
We Add Economic Value to Disposed Waste
Comprehensive Waste Management
We Handle Our Clients' Waste at Mining Site Dumps
Footprint Alliance
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“I started working on circularity topics in 2022. I began the challenge by researching and reading different models (…) it is a very strong topic, especially in mining. All companies, suppliers, and clients are aligned: avoiding the use of raw materials and circularizing as much as possible. With steel, we naturally recycle steel liners and some time ago we opened up to seek more solutions along the same lines, together with the client.”
The initiative can benefit all of our clients who process copper, whether concentrate or cathode:
- Pelambres
- Collahuasi
- Escondida
- Anglo American
- Chinalco
- Centinela
- Candelaria
- Caserones
- Quebrada Blanca
- Spence
- Antaparcay
- Codelco Chuquicamata
- Codelco MInistro Hales
- Codelco Teniente
- Codelco Andina
