Beneficial Use of Short Paper Fiber (paper mill sludge) for Pollution Prevention in the Mining Industry, 2004 Paper Summit, Spring Technical & International Environmental Conference, (including Papermakers; Process Control, Electrical & Information; Produ

One of the major environmental issues facing the mining industry is water quality and treatment of large volumes of contaminated water. The treatment and handling of these massive volumes of water is not only very costly, but at times, the reason for not receiving new state and federal permits for expanding operations or opening new mining sites. One area of concern is surface water, not only water shedding off mine refuse piles, but rainwater percolating through them.

Short Paper Fiber (SPF) has proven to be beneficial in reducing and in some cases eliminating the generation of contaminated water due to mining operations. SPF is a co-product that is manufactured in the papermaking process. It is a co-product, produced at any mill which utilizes a water treatment system for removing solids and further purification of process water after the papermaking process. The marketing program developed and implemented for selling the SPF product is called BioMix Technology. With proper permitting (in some states) the BioMix Technology has been able to de-classify the SPF material as a solid waste and recognize it as a product based on its’ intrinsic properties.