Once the liner is used by the customer in their operation, the worn part becomes scrap or waste in the customers' warehouses, which accumulates over time.
This, combined with the new provisions of the REP Law (Extended Producer Responsibility), which defines obligations for industries regarding their production processes and how to comprehensively manage waste.
Today the customer can pay for another actor in the chain to manage and/or dispose of their waste.
Since 2016, the operations area, together with other support teams, has sought to increase the circularity of the products we develop. To do this, we have progressively integrated recycled raw materials into the different products developed locally, such as steel liners.
We started by identifying the composition of these products once used by mining customers. The result of the research was understanding that once these components were implemented in mining processes, they still contained 95% material that could be reused.
Therefore, the procurement area monitors the purchases made by customers, to then buy and recirculate the scrap and convert it into a new liner.
Comprehensive waste management
We handle our clients’ waste at mining site dumps
“Since 2020, our clients have started asking us not only about process and quality issues, but a common question was what we are doing regarding circular economy or how we are measuring the carbon footprint”
We use 95% recycled raw material in the product, achieving a circularity rate of 71% during 2022 (see chart). This has meant a reduction from 8.4% use of virgin raw material in 2016 to 3.8% in 2021.
With this initiative, all of our customers contribute to circularity:
- Pelambres
- Collahuasi
- Escondida
- Anglo American
- Chinalco
- Centinela
- Candelaria
- Caserones
- Quebrada Blanca
- Spence
- Antaparcay
- Codelco Chuquicamata
- Codelco MInistro Hales
- Codelco Teniente
- Codelco Andina
