2015

WASTE MANAGEMENT AT NORTH MARA GOLD PLANT

TO NORTH MARA ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

CC

FROM

METALLURGICAL TEAM

GULAMALI BAYA

SUBJECT GOLD PLANT WASTE MANAGEMENT REPORT

DATE 25TH

JUNE, 2015

PROJECT TITLE: Waste Management at Gold Plant

INTRODUCTION

“Waste” is a general term for material which currently has little or no economic value. The

material (water, solids, and gases) left behind after the ore has been processed to remove the gold

material, are considered to be waste materials in Gold Plant.

Therefore, The type, amount, and properties of gold plant waste produced at our processing plant

is due to the process technology used, due to this reasons we have focused to manage waste

produced by the plant in order to deal with the large volumes of waste produced and to prevent

the release of contaminates into the environment.

TYPES OF GOLD PLANT WASTE

Solid Waste – Mainly rocks/ Scrap Metals / Domestics Wastes/ Hydrocarbons wastes:

Hydrocarbons waste- plastic, rubbers, reagent bags etc.

Scrap metals waste – Used liners, steel ball, steel plates, empty

drums etc.

Domestic wastes- food stuff, paper & filter paper, wood etc.

Rocks waste include particulate matter (dust)

Liquid waste - Mainly slurry/ water/ Tailings/ Chemicals

Tailings are finely ground rock and mineral waste products of

Gold plant processing operations. Tailings can also contain

leftover processing chemicals, and are usually deposited in the

form of water-based slurry into tailings ponds TSF

(sedimentation lagoons enclosed by dams built to capture and

store the tailings).

Process water is the kind of water which contains cyanide and

other chemicals produced after decantation process takes place

at the TSF, its pumped back to the mill.

Chemicals like HCL, H2SO4, Flocculants etc.

WASTE GENERATED IN THE GOLD PLANT

Description Quantity Kg/day Kg/week Kg/ month Tonnes/year

Solid waste Rubber

Plastic

21 150 630 7.56

5 35 150 1.80

Scraps Metal

Food stuff

200 1400 1550 18.6

22 154 660 7.92

Wood, paper 9 80 570 6.84

MANAGEMENT OF GOLD PLANT WASTE

Tailing management, Because tailings are composed of fine particles (sand, silt, and

clay-sized material), and often have a high water content (process water- water with

cyanide), they have been particularly troublesome to manage, pumped into tailings

ponds on site for decantation process and then recycle water back to the processing

plant. Although there have been a number of incidents where the dams securing

tailings ponds have been breached, we have been learning from the enquiries into

tailing dam failures, and we have improved tailings dam design and execution.

Scraps metals, like used steel balls are placed in the safe place for sorting process,

then the qualified one which have wearied well are recycled back to the mill depending

on diameter. Others which have rough surface are combined with Used liners, steel

plates and empty drums taken out of the plant by means of trucks.

Hydrocarbon and domestic waste are collected by means of movable plastic drum

taken to the incinerator to change into other forms prior to the environment.

Particulate matter (dust), are controlled by means of electrostatic precipitator

(environmental control technology) capable of removing up to 99.7% of dust and

fumes.