Source: O Liberal
Published on May 10, 2011
Environment
Mining company has 6,000 giant tires that will be turned into ecological concrete
At Carajás Iron Mine in the municipality of Parauapebas in Pará and the city of São Paulo, Vale is conducting an initiative that should, by the end of next year, eliminate its entire environmental liability related to giant tires used in mining – totaling 6,000 tires in the North and South regions. Using a pair of hydraulic scissors attached to an excavator, these enormous objects made of rubber and steel are being cut up and then shredded, and the raw materials separated for reuse.
The tires will be cut up in Pará and then shredded in São Paulo, but the intention of Vale’s CEO, according to Vale’s director of Procurement Development and Intelligence, Rodrigo Colombaretti, is to set up a shredding unit in the north of the country to eliminate this long-distance transportation. Through this pilot project, the rubber will be used to produce ecological concrete and asphalt, as well as to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels used to generate power in the cement industry, given that it can replace up to 25% of green petroleum coke, a sub-product obtained by distilling petroleum. [“Vale is focused on developing sustainability mechanisms”] The steel will be sold as scrap for reuse in the steel industry.
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