Principles of a mine transition to sustainable and environmentally sound development

A mine is considered as an independent organization-and-financial structure of specialized production including mining, processing and metallurgy. The major idea of the sustain able and adjustable development of a mine consists in creation of conditions for never-ceasing operation without trespassing of a certain environmental threshold. The principles reflective of the increased influence of the ecological factors to be taken into account at different stages of establishing a mine practice are presented. The environmental impact of a mine is governed by the maximum allowable load of ecosystem with its natural recovery. The provisions of sustainable mine functioning involve: setting priority of a mineral deposit, its remoteness, feasible increment of reserves, allowable ranges of production output and metal content, distinguishing of underground mining systems by waste backfill, low-waste technology using auxiliary processes from allied sectors, efficiency of waste processing and pre-treatment, unit product price and other resource-based constraints. With regard to the environmental restrictions of the sustainable development, the trends of advancement of new geotechnologies are identified.

Kaplunov D. R., Yukov V. A. Principles of a mine transition to sustainable and environmentally sound development. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2020;(3):74-86. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236-1493-2020-3-0-74-86.

D.R. Kaplunov¹, Corresponding Member of Russian Academy of Sciences, Chief Researcher,
V.A. Yukov¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Senior Researcher,
1 Institute of Problems of Comprehensive Exploitation of Mineral Resources of Russian Academy of Sciences, 111020, Moscow, Russia.

D.R. Kaplunov, e-mail: info@ipkonran.ru.

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