Sustainable Management of Thickened Tailings in Chile and Peru: A Review of Practical Experience and Socio-Environmental Acceptance

Carlos Cacciuttolo Vargas () and Alex Marinovic Pulido
Additional contact information
Carlos Cacciuttolo Vargas: Civil Works and Geology Department, Catholic University of Temuco, Temuco 4780000, Chile
Alex Marinovic Pulido: Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Privada del Norte, Cajamarca 06001, Peru

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-65

Abstract: The “Thickened Tailings Disposal” (TTD) technology produces a high density mine waste that allows for the storage of this material without the need to manage large slurry tailings storage facilities (TSFs) and large dams. TTD has been applied considering site specific conditions of Chile and Peru, such as extreme climatic conditions, seismic risks, water scarcity, community demands, and environmental constraints. This review highlights the contribution of several experiences in Chile and Peru, which have chosen TTD technology for reduction of negative environmental impacts, mainly focusing on the following issues: (i) increase of tailings water recovery, (ii) reduction of TSFs footprint (impacted areas), (iii) decrease the risk of physical instability, avoiding the construction of high dams, and (iv) decrease of TSFs seepages. Finally, the article describes the advantages (benefits) and disadvantages (aspects to improve) of TTD, where nowadays a high degree of dewatering of tailings is seen as a safe option, considering the occurrence of some TSF dam failures recently worldwide, which has resulted in severe environmental pollution. A better environmental perception about TTD of authorities and communities, considering that this technology allows to satisfy the needs of stable and safe TSFs, make the TTD be more acceptable, popular and one of the best available technologies (BATs) for operations with mine tailings.

Keywords: thickened tailings; paste tailings; thickened tailings disposal (TTD); tailings thickening; positive displacement pumps; tailings beach slope; down valley discharge; cell dyke disposal; tailings storage facility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10901/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10901/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10901-:d:903435

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().