Validation of a Sustainable Model for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry in Mexico †
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Basis
- The first element that is considered as a theoretical basis is the discussion between Sustainability and Sustainable Development. This is the cause of a possible conflict of definition in these concepts, in their execution. They can be synonymous, however, in their implementation: sustainability originates in the management, while sustainable development is part of the practices [3].
- Sustainability is part of strategic planning, focusing on ecological and spatial impacts, the latter (1) the supply (consumption of water, energy, fuels) and (2) sanitation (solid waste, wastewater, toxic gases). It also considers aspects of the problems (scientific and ethical) and, at the same time, considers the limits and maximum possible requirements to maintain the standard of living and economic development [3]. Sustainable Development, is an alternative principle to generate a balance between economic growth, social justice and the environment; therefore, it means that there are necessary programs in which the inclusion of human habits tend to the equity of consumerism and the creation of services and opportunities and, more efficient production and operation processes that take advantage of the use of renewable resources [4].
- Therefore, it is considered from the analysis of these concepts, a research own definition: “Sustainable refers to environmental practices endorsed by legislation through normativity, which allow industry and society to guarantee natural resources to future generations; these practices are integrated into strategic plans from business management”.
- Regarding the second element, governments around the world considered sustainable development efforts and, together, led the economic, social and environmental challenges. As a result, they have proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which emerge within the framework of a United Nations Congress and are raised in the “Agenda 2030”, among these, there are at least six that directly force practices for the benefit of the environment [5]:
- Clean water and sanitation
- Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- Sustainable cities and communities
- Responsible production and consumption
- Action for climate
- Terrestrial and life ecosystems
3. Sustainable Model in the Mining-Metallurgical Industry
- E1, represent the literal concepts of Sustainability and Sustainable Development, and with the basis of a theoretical discussion, it let the research to present an own way to express them.
- E2, refers to the second element, that involucrate the Theoretical Basis that gives the principal axis to the research: universal principles of sustainability.
- E3, refers to the third element, this is the theoretical basis that the Law in Mexico, brings to the companies of the mining sector, obligations
- E4-N, the fourth and new element is presented as the first collaboration of this research as added value by this research. It contains the work field that included the construction of data collection instruments.
4. Methodological Basis
- Preoperative stage, which includes literary support, construction of instruments for the data collection and programming;
- Stage of field work, which included the application of the instruments created after a interview and several visits to the units.
- Stage of analysis and interpretation, in which the participation of experts in mining and environmental matters to carry it out was considered.
- Dependence refers to the consistency of the data
- Credibility is related to the validity of the constructions and the content
- Transfer is the applicability of the results
- Confirmation, which is measured by minimizing the biases of the researchers.
5. Results
- Dependency, is consolidated when experts in the mining-environmental field, reviewed, analyzed and interpreted the information obtained from each unit of analysis, having reached congruent and similar interpretations.
- Credibility or "maximum validity", whose conjunctions of meanings and experiences are linked to the research approach, being the proposals, suggestions and corrections of advisers in research methodology and mining technical advisors, who provide the relevant guidance to avoid trends and, therefore, generate quality required to accept this criterion. It also validates constructions and contents.
- Transfer refers to the application of the results, in this case the sustainable model in other scenarios. This criterion was validated once the model was implemented in four different units, according to its own characteristics. The possibility of replicating it in more mining-metallurgical units is part of the general objective of the formal research that supports this document.
- Confirmation, validated by the participation of the General Managers, Bosses, Managers or Persons Responsible for the "environment" of the analysis units, who guided the veracity of the responses, showed evidence and remained attentive to the interpretations that the researcher and Experts have described about the information they provided.
6. Conclusions
7. Intellectual Property
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Sustainable Principle | Description | Goals that Apply to the Mining-Metallurgical Sector |
---|---|---|
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure | Growth and urbanization generate the need for new investments in sustainable infrastructures that allow cities to be more resistant to climate change and promote economic growth and social stability. | Develop reliable, sustainable, resilient and quality infrastructures to support economic development and human well-being. |
Promote an inclusive and sustainable industrialization; provide financial, technological and technical support. | ||
Increase scientific research and improve the technological capacity of the sector. | ||
Sustainable Cities and Communities | Cities are required with opportunities, access to services, energy, housing, transportation and more facilities. Cities are characterized as centers that concentrate commerce, culture, science, productivity, creativity, social and economic development. | Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems. |
Increase inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable planning and management of human settlements. | ||
Reduce the negative environmental impact per capita of cities, including paying special attention to air quality and the management of municipal and other types of waste. | ||
Responsible Production and Consumption | Create more and better things with fewer resources, increasing net profits by reducing resource utilization, degradation and pollution, achieving a better quality of life. Adoption of a systemic approach to achieve cooperation among participants: companies, consumers, government, organisms, researchers, scientists. | Achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources. |
Achieve environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle and reduce their release to the atmosphere, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse effects on human health and the environment. | ||
Significantly reduce the generation of waste through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse activities. | ||
Terrestrial and Life Ecosystems | Nature, seen as ecosystems, occupies 30% of the earth's surface, which provides food security and shelter, fundamental to combat climate change, by protecting biological diversity. The challenges for sustainable development are: deforestation and human desertification, through the restoration of ecosystems. | Ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, particularly forests, wetlands, mountains and arid zones. |
Promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, stop deforestation, recover degraded forests and significantly increase afforestation and reforestation. | ||
Adopt urgent and significant measures to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, stop the loss of biodiversity and protect threatened species and prevent their extinction. |
Environmental Parameters | Description of the Environmental Parameter According to the EIM |
---|---|
Usefull Lifetime | The stages are described with justification and precision, this implies planning at the end of the productive activities and managing according to the location and characteristics of the mining unit in any of its processes. |
Technical Support | It is required to have a specialist to carry out the study that will support the presentation of MIA to the authorities. This ensures that remediation will be reliable, since this person concentrates his activities on such preparation. |
Nature of the Project | It must be justified if it is a new mining work, expansion, expansion, modification, replacement, rehabilitation of infrastructure or other situation to identify present and future environmental elements. Also indicate the stage of the mining process in question: exploration, exploitation, benefit, remediation or closure. |
Dimensions | Specify the total area; It is necessary to consider all the territorial extension, to describe the possible risks that are run: rivers, mountains, valleys, lagoons, to be able to document it to mitigate the impact in the remediation stage. |
Land use | It is required to specify the use of land in the area: agricultural, livestock, forestry, human settlement, industrial, tourism, mining, protected, without obvious use, to describe the use of water settlements, which may be: public supply, recreation, fishing, aquaculture. With this, it is expected that the alteration suffered will not change the ecosystem in essence, neither during the operation nor in the remediation. |
Urbanization of the area | Availability of basic and support services near the unit. Manage the operation to obtain, build or operate the infrastructure. This includes access roads, drinking water, electricity, drainage; wastewater treatment, telephone lines. |
Site Preparation | Describe in detail and objectively the design of each of the stages of the mining process, to know and associate the effect of this design with the minimization of impacts to the environment and the remediation that will be developed based on mitigating or avoiding them. |
Construction of Works | Describe in detail the works to be built at each stage of the mining process, as remediation, recovery of territorial extension, land use and water settlements will be necessary. In this way, the remediation of ditches, tunnels, wells, pits, dynamite sites, deposits of inert and fertile material, leaching yards, dams will be analyzed in detail. |
Operation and Maintenance | Description of programs of operation and maintenance of the facilities, including type of services provided, technology related to the emission of and control of liquid, solid or gas waste, type of repair to systems, equipment, weed control, harmful fauna and their methods of control. |
Abandonment | Description of tentative and reality-bound programs based on technical feasibility studies. Rehabilitation, compensation and restitution measures will be considered. This will provide environmental impacts and availability of resources to carry it out. |
Use of Explosives | Detail quantity and territorial extension that will be impacted, since the risks of seismic vibrations that are generated can cause permanent or irreversible damage. In addition, the damaged image will be considered in the remediation. |
Waste Generation and Management | This description includes the generation and disposal of solid waste, liquids and emissions, and also the infrastructure for their management. This category includes sanitary landfills, wastewater treatment plants, recycling, confinement and their sufficiency. The territorial extensions that these occupy have a strong environmental impact. |
Infrastructure for Waste Management and Disposal | Identify infrastructure services for management and final disposal of waste in the locality: landfill, wastewater treatment, separation, handling, treatment, recycling or confinement of waste. Check if they are sufficient for the present, future and even other projects demand. |
Abiotic Aspects | In this parameter, will be described aspects such as: type of climate, climatological phenomena (earthquakes, for example to consider the use of explosives), lithological characteristics (vegetation mapping), morphological characteristics (hills, slopes, depressions), relief characteristics (topographic plane), presence of faults and fracturing, susceptibility (earthquakes, volcanoes); hydrological resources of the area (surface and underground). |
Biotic Aspects | In this parameter, detailed aspects of: vegetation (indicator representing environmental conditions), wildlife (terrestrial, aquatic) must be described. It is not only considered to list them, but to make deep interpretations considering: seasonality (periods of life), distribution, taxonomic difficulty (classification of species). |
Landscape | The visibility (topographic aspects: altitude, orientation, slopes), landscape quality (normally morphological intrinsic characteristics), visual quality (lithology, bodies of water), scenic background quality (diversity of vegetation, altitude) will be described in detail. Fragility is also described (ability to absorb changes). |
Classification | Name of the Unit | Corporate | Mineral Extracted OR Processed | Location Trend/Region |
Underground Mine | MSJ | ASM | Silver and lead, Concentrate, (metallic) | Trend Ag-Au-Pb-Zn |
Open Pit Mine | LL | EMM | Feldspar Concentrate (non-metallic) | South central region |
Refinery | REZ | GIMM | Zinc, Sulfuric Aid | North central region |
Unit in Closing | MSX | NGI | Gold (dore), silver | Trend Ag-Au-Pb-Zn |
Sustainable Principle | Stages of the Mining-Metallurgical Process | |||
Exploration | Exploitation | Concentration | Closing | |
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure | 1. Construction of roads for exploration machinery. 2. Construction of squares. 3. Water use. 4. Maintenance of equipment in the field, use of supplies. | 1. Displacement of material in the open sky and in underground developments. 2. Formation of sites 3. Training of mounds. 4. Construction of workshops for services. | 1. Obtaining tailings as waste. 2. Use and containment of chemical reagents. 3. Excessive use and contamination of water. 4. Spills. | 1. Technical studies and incomplete supervision. 2. Rules not fulfilled. |
Sustainable Cities and Communities | 1. Construction of roads and steps. 2. Limited economic resource and, on the other hand, not limited. | 1. Creation of non-governmental organizations (stakeholders). 2. Use of explosives without prior technical studies. 3. Construction of roads without considering populations. | 1. Creation of non-governmental organizations 2. Small miners without economic resources, do not support the community. | 1. Creation of non-governmental organizations 2. Limited economic resources do not support community. |
Responsible Production and Consumption | 1. Displacement of material by exploration work. 2. Approach the water table | 1. Construction of luminaries. 2. Construction of underground mine shots. 3. Construction of tunnels. 4. Extraction of gases into the atmosphere. | 1. Excessive water consumption. 2. Storage of obsolete reagents in the concentration plant and laboratories. | 1. Water pollution. 2. Construction of tailings dam without slopes |
Terrestrial and Life Ecosystems | 1. Construction of roads. 2. Construction of squares. 3. Use of oil. | 1. Formation of land. 2. Formation of mounds. 3. Construction of industrial buildings, infrastructure. | 1. Obtaining tailings as waste. | 1. Infrastructure construction. 2. Insufficient or no economic programming for closing and remediation stages. |
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Martínez, R.; Bednarek, M.; Zulawska, U. Validation of a Sustainable Model for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry in Mexico. Proceedings 2019, 38, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019038012
Martínez R, Bednarek M, Zulawska U. Validation of a Sustainable Model for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry in Mexico. Proceedings. 2019; 38(1):12. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019038012
Chicago/Turabian StyleMartínez, Rosa, Mariusz Bednarek, and Urszula Zulawska. 2019. "Validation of a Sustainable Model for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry in Mexico" Proceedings 38, no. 1: 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2019038012