Beneficial Use of Short Paper Fiber (paper mill sludge) for Pollution Prevention in the Mining Industry

摘要

One of the major environmental issues facing the mining industry is water quality and treatment of largernvolumes of contaminated water. The treatment and handling of these massive volumes of water is not onlyrnvery costly, but at times, the reason for not receiving new state and federal permits for expandingrnoperations or opening new mining sites. One area of concern is surface water, not only water shedding offrnmine refuse piles, but rainwater percolating through them.rnShort Paper Fiber (SPF) has proven to be beneficial in reducing and in some cases eliminating therngeneration of contaminated water due to mining operations. SPF is a co-product that is manufactured in thernpapermaking process. It is a co-product, produced at any mill which utilizes a water treatment system forrnremoving solids and further purification of process water after the papermaking process. The marketingrnprogram developed and implemented for selling the SPF product is called BioMix Technology. Withrnproper permitting (in some states) the BioMix Technology has been able to de-classify the SPF material asrna solid waste and recognize it as a product based on its' intrinsic properties.