Balance ambiental para actividades mineras a pequeña escala en la Provincia El Oro.

Abstract

This research covers the study of an existing environmental balance in the province of El Oro and the Ponce Enriquez canton, due to the activity of small mining, the study was carried out at the Virgen de la Nieve plant and the El Porvenir mining company. As is well known, the processes demand a lot of expenditure on raw materials and resources, among the most important are water and energy, thus causing a climate change that is affected in the environment, so it has been necessary to quantify certain polluting parameters by calculating the carbon footprint, water footprint, transition factors, carry out a life cycle analysis and propose mitigation measures. Within the methodology, ISO 14040, 14064 and 14046 standards were used, in addition the GHC protocol was used, and the business council criteria to calculate the transition indicators. It was found that the carbon footprint of the “El Porvenir” Community Mining Association mine produced a total of 0.030 Ton CO2 / Ton of material extracted and in the “Virgen de la Nube” Processing Plant a total of 0.6 Ton CO2 / Ton material processed, in the blue water footprint of the Community Mining Association “El Porvenir” mine a total of 0.060 m3 of water / Ton material extracted and in the “Virgen de la Nube” Processing Plant the blue water footprint is produced a total of 0.063 m3 of water / Ton of processed material and the gray water footprint with a total of 0.036 m3 of water / Ton of processed material, in this way possible improvements can be established once the environmental balance has been established.