Antucoya and Epiroc will transform 43 tons of steel into construction material

Minera Antucoya, of the Chilean company Antofagasta Minerals , and the collaborating company Epiroc recycled 43.5 tons of steel through a circular economy project that aims to give a new use to drilling materials from the mine area that have already reached their useful life.

The initiative , led by the Company's Drilling and Blasting Superintendence, consists of the removal and management of the transfer of these materials that will be transformed on this occasion, mainly, into raw materials for the construction sector.

The disused alloy has been removed twice from the mine yards in 2024, in compliance with what was projected by Minera Antucoya. 

“We are addressing the circular economy in a more comprehensive way, not only considering recycled tonnage, but also being proactive to reduce our resource consumption and generating actions that allow us to extend the useful life of the raw materials and equipment we use, in line with Antofagasta Minerals' Circular Economy Strategy,” explained the Company's general manager, Ivo Fadic.

Tricones are tools made up of three parts that rotate at the same time to break, grind the rock and make a large diameter hole (like the tip of a normal drill bit) and the bars are what give the extension to these perforations. where chemicals and explosives will finally be introduced for blasting in the mine area.

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Initiatives 2023

This steel recycling project joins other initiatives that the company promoted in 2023, such as the recycling of out-of-use tires , which managed to transform almost 300 tons of them into input for bicycle track and soccer field mats; It also recycled 310 tons of lead anodes, equivalent to 4 thousand plates that were converted to be inserted into the industry's production chain.

The circular economy does not only cover industrial waste. A project that is constantly developed is the recycling of plastic bottles, where 850 kilos of recycled PET bottles were reached, which after being processed in the first instance at the site are sent to specialist suppliers who convert them into containers for food and Cookware.

In the same way, workers collected their work clothes to gather a ton of various garments, which, thanks to an alliance with the company from the Metropolitan Region, Ecocitex, were transformed into new textile material, without using even water. nor dyeing in its washing or dyeing processes. The initiative also has a social component, by employing inmates and former inmates of penitentiary centers, who are in charge of creating footboards, bed lowerings, rugs, among other pieces.