1
Compiled by Dr. Joe Herbertson
June 2001
Sustainable Resource
Processing
A
Perspective on Materials Flows in Minerals Processing
•Environmental impacts
tend to be closely linked to material and energy intensities
•An assessment of the
principal inputs and outputs of a range of minerals and metals industries was conducted by Dr.
Steven Algie 1, covering the major raw materials,
reagents,
products, wastes and emissions, on a virgin product basis
•Data were analysed in
terms of world volumes, Australian volumes and per tonne of virgin product
•Underlying data were
drawn from numerous public sources, and rationalised in a way to make it easy to form a
global view of the industry’s material and energy flows
•So far, the analysis has
covered four minerals industries with large associated materials flows, namely iron &
steel, cement, aluminium and gold
•This analysis does not
represent a Life Cycle Assessment 2; however, a simple mass balance of this type provides the
starting point of life cycle thinking
1. For detailed
spreadsheets and reference sources or discussions on applying the methodology
to specific situations, please contact
algie@multiline.com.au; note, some simplification and ‘average
performance’ assumptions were necessary to get a reasonably consistent
analysis; note also, the
materials flow analysis considers only chemically
transformed minerals
- it excludes, as far as possible, mining and quarrying and physical
separation of minerals (beneficiation)
2. LCA starts with a
inputs-outputs mass balance and then ascribes energy and environmental values
to each material stream; the methodology of analysisng inputs and outputs per tonne of product is a
form of ‘ecological rucksack’ calculation, as pioneered by the Wuppertal
Institute, www.wupperinst.org