Utilisation of

Waste Derived out of Mining

V.D. Rajagopal, M.Sc., B.L.,
Director of Mines & Geology, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh &
Vice-Chairman & Managing Director,
Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd.,
(A Government of AP undertaking)
Hyderabad 1
 A.P. at a Glance on various Mineral Revenue Share
(Revenue in Crores)

Mineral % Share Achivements

Major Minerals

Coal 26.80 337.50

Crude Oil 5.93 75.00

Natural Gas 3.90 49.40

Limestone 11.07 140.00

Barytes 0.39 5.00

Other Major Minerals 4.33 54.75

Sub - Total 52.30 661.65

Minor Minerals
BlackGranite 6.59 83.32
Color Granite 3.39 43.00
Road Metal 18.19 230.04
Gravel 6.31 80.00
Limestone Slabs 0.55 7.00
Other Minor Minerals 5.58 70.55
Penalty 0.58 6.54
Sub - Total 41.14 520.45
Cess on MBL 6.55 82.90
GRAND TOTAL 100.00 1265.00
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 Comparative Statement with Other States
Mineral Revenue Collections

Target Ach'mt
State % of Increase
2005-06 2005-06 2004-05

Andhra Pradesh 1150.00 1100.00 864.53 27.38

Tamil Nadu 414.00 414.00 396.00 4.54

Chattisgarh 706.00 734.46 694.52 5.75

Orissa 860.00 765.00 670.51 14.09

Rajasthan 750.00 809.85 645.34 25.49

Jarkhand 1100.00 1008.00 934.00 7.92

Karnataka 280.00 308.00 286.00 1.07

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Introduction

 Exploitation of mineral resources creates huge

waste/sub grade material dumps
 A waste is a waste as long as it is unused
 Waste dumps all along the mining belt for various
minerals reveal necessity of attention to be paid for
its utility for prosperity of human kind by way of
creation of large scale employment in rural areas
 This would form as best environmental mining
planning practice.

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Case studies

 Dimensional Stones
 Barytes
 Clay
 Asbestos
 Dolomite
 Slate
 Tailings derived out of gold mining
 Sand Stone out of waste derived from M/S. S.C.C.
Ltd.

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Dimensional Stones

 Andhra Pradesh is one of the important Granite

producing states
 unique varieties are
 Galaxy granite deposit of Chimakurthy in Prakasam district
 Jet black granite of Warangal and Khammam districts
 G20 variety of black granite from chittore district.
 Blue and White variety of Srikakulam district
 Tan brown variety of Karimnagar district
 Sierra grey of Anantapur dist
 Kuppam green.

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Recovery of Granite blocks

 Black Granite 10%

 Colour Granite 40 %
 Presently producing sizes
 Gang saw size (270 cm x 150 cm and above)
 Block cutter size (below 270 cm x150 cm)
 Small sizes (70 cm x 35 cm x 35 cm).

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Recovery of Granite blocks contd..

 The rest of the material is thrown as waste

 Waste granite can produce useful slabs, which
ultimately serve on par with granite of bigger sizes.
 Recovery of small size granite blocks ranging from 15
centimeters to 35 centimeter is possible
 As masonry technique is superior in India, Flooring can be
laid without any surface variations and, if colour combinations
are used flooring can be of different designs.

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Recovery of Granite blocks contd..

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Interesting statistics of value of
waste Granite

Total Volume of Granite produced during 1988-2004. 2.1 m cbm

Total volume of waste generaterd 11.4 m cbm

Assuming 20 % of this waste is put to use in every year, the quantity there off 2.28m cbm

Useful quantity out of this (by taking 50 %) 1.14m cbm

Quantity of Slabs of 10mm thickness that could be produced 57 m sqm

Value of these slabs at Rs 40 /sft Rs. 2280 crores

Labour component involved (by taking 30% of the value) Rs. 684 crores

No. of workers benefited with a wage of Rs. 200/-. 1,14,000

The situation is more or less similar in other granite

producing states 10
Limestone Slabs

 Flaggy limestone deposits occurring throughout

the State of Andhra Pradesh in
 Kadapa basin
 Palnadu basin
 Bheema basin
 Mining of flaggy lime stones for the last several
years produced huge waste dumps in Anantapur,
Kadapa, Kurnool, Guntur, Nalgonda and RR
districts.

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Limestone Slabs contd..
 Flaggy limestone mainly constitutes
 Calcium Carbonate ranging between 36% and 50 %
 SiO2 ranging from 7 % to 24%.
 Due to its perfect cleavage, it is easy to extract slabs over a
thickness of 20 mm to 50 mm.
 Used for
 Flooring
 Wall construction
 Roofing.
 There are number of stone polishing industries developed
basing on these flaggy Limestone in Andhra Pradesh.

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Limestone Slabs contd..

 GOAP got estimation of these deposits and its

grades through National Council for Cement and
Building Materials (NCCBM) and DMG.
 There are about 200 million tonnes of such waste dumps,
which consist mainly of flaggy limestone of irregular sizes
 These reserves could be made use of for the following
purposes:
 Manufacturing of ordinary Portland cement
 Blending with high quality cement grade Limestone
 Manufacturing of Masonry Cement:
 Manufacturing Hydrated lime

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Limestone Slabs contd..

 This will make way to

 Open the areas locked up of additional reserves of
limestone
 Improving the environment.
 Manufacturing hydrated lime and masonry cement
 Assuming a basic minimum price of about Rs.800/- per
tonne of hydrated lime and about Rs.2000 for masonry
cement, about Rs.1400/- per tonne can be realized. For
100 million tonnes the value is about Rs.14000 crores.
 Assuming 20%, as labour component on this Rs.2800 crores can
be set apart towards wages @ Rs. 200/- per day providing
employment to about 2 lakh labour in the State.

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Limestone Slabs contd..

 Also this waste can be used for making stone

bricks of normal sizes like 9”x4.5”x4”
 These bricks can be replace the traditional clay made
bricks.
 Preserve the soil/clay for agricultural purposes.
 Use of cement and iron can be reduced since outside
plastering of walls can be avoided and only line
plastering is enough for wall construction.
 The stone bricks can also be used as pavement stone
which is 2/3rd cheaper to the Granite pavement stone

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Barytes Mining

 The Barytes deposit in Mangampeta village,

Cuddapah district in Andhra Pradesh is unique
with its bedded nature and grey in colour.
 It occurs in the form of two lensoid bodies
 Northern lense with a strike length of 1222 meters and
width of 90 meters occupying an area of 0.81 sq.
kilometers
 Southern lense is located towards 700 meters south of
northern lense with a strike length of 300 meters and
width of 80 meters occupying 0.11 sq. kilometers.

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Barytes Mining contd..

 The thickness of Barytes ranges from 16 to 40

meters with a overburden ranging from 140 to 180
meters.
 The total estimated reserves are 74.05 million
tonnes.
 A.P.Mineral Development Corporation Ltd., is
presently operating these mines since 1975.
 Corporation produced about
 11 million tonnes of ore
 40 million tonnes of overburden.

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Barytes Mining contd..

 Overburden mainly consists of

 75% of white shale
 25% of black shale, which are otherwise called as volcanic
tuff.
 Black shale
 Jet black having grayish striations with a thickness of about
30 to 45 centimeters.
 The Corporation is resorting to blasting as a result of which
it develops multiple cracks and is thrown as waste.
 Samples are dressed to rectangular sized slabs after cutting
and polishing, the results are found encouraging.

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Barytes Mining contd..

 The 20 mm thickness slabs varying in sizes from 6

centimeters to 45 centimeters in combinations can be
produced.
 With a production cost taken as zero, since it is a waste,
the black shale, after cutting and polishing @ Rs.5/- per
sq.ft,(the cost taken on par with naturally occurring
slabs elsewhere in the State), the same can also be
equally marketed.

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Barytes Mining contd..

 The total overburden so far removed is 40 million

tonnes out of which if 25% is taken as black shale the
reserves come to about 10 million tonnes.
 Out of this, even assuming 50% as useful recovery, about 3
million tonnes of black shale can be put to use for making
slabs of different sizes. It comes to about 58 million sq.meters
of slab.
 If the waste towards cutting and polishing is deducted
we may get about 46 million sq.meters of slabs.

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Barytes Mining contd..

 Assuming a production cost of Rs.50/- per

sq.meter the value would be about Rs.230
crores.
 If these blocks are proved useful then instead of
resorting to blasting the black shale can be cut
into blocks using wiresaw so that the recovery
percentage can be increased.

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Clay

 Along with good grade Ball Clay there are huge

quantities of inferior grade ferruginous clay, which
are dumped as mine waste near the open cast mines
of Dwarakatirumala, West Godavari district of A.P.
 The ferruginous clay occur as overburden to the
Ball Clay in 5 : 1 ratio within Raghavapuram shales
of Upper Gondwana formation.
 The production of the low-grade clay is Rs.20/- at
mine head. The beneficiation cost works out to be
Rs.200/-.

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Clay contd..

 After beneficiation, the cost of the washed clay at

plant is about Rs.800 per tonne. Already the
Corporation established a clay washery near the
site to utilize these clay dumps to produce high
quality washed clay.
 There is still scope for establishing some more
clay washeries to cater to the needs of micro
ceramic and refractory industries.

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Asbestos

 Chrysotile Asbestos occurs in the Vempalli

formation of Cuddapah Super Group of rocks over
a 15 km Pulivendla belt of Cuddapah district.
 Serpentine, a Magnesium silicate, both in lemon
yellow and green colour, is available in plenty as
waste dumps near the Asbestos mines.
 Serpentine is also known to have the chemical nature to
absorb the fluorine content in the water which could be
tried for utilization for water treatment in the fluorine
infested areas in Nalgonda district of A.P.

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Asbestos contd..

 Serpentine & dolomite are generally used in

the manufacture of Mosaic tiles.
 there is a scope for establishing a unit to
produce these chemicals from serpentine
after conducting pilot plant studies &
market feasibility studies.

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Dolomite
 M/s. Hindustan Zinc Ltd., have operated lead mines in
Agnigundala in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.
 Lead deposit occurs in association with dolomite of
Palnadu series of Kurnool sub.group.
 Lead concentrate was produced by crushing the host rock.
 The Dolomitic powder has piled up at the mine site as
waste tailings.
 Useful for steel flexing by way of mixing with high-grade
dolomitic powder.
 Detailed study of these reserves is worthy.

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Slates

 A.P. is the largest producer of Slate in the country.

 Deposits of Slate occur in Prakasam, Guntur and
Cuddapah districts.
 The Markapur Slate in Prakasam district is of high
quality.
 Slates are being used for a variety of purposes such
as wall clading, rooftop and other decorative
purpose.
 Last year production of slates of export quality is
80,000 tonnes.

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Slates contd..

 Taking 20% waste from the production of slates

since last 15 years, about 2,40,000 tonnes is
expected to be present covering a slate bearing
stretch of about 10 km.
 The present sale price of designed slate is about
Rs.180/- per sq.mt.
 Some industries are coming up using the waste to
produce smaller size designed slates

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Slates contd..

 There is a scope for some more units for

wall cladding/paneling purposes as there are
different coloured slates such as Black,
Blue-black, Grey-blue, purple-green and
red are available in plenty.

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Tailings Derived Out Of Gold
Mining
 The age-old mining for gold in Kolar Gold Fields
have produced huge tailings, which are seen
around Kolar Gold Fields.
 The total quantity estimated is 50 million tonnes.
It also contains a little gold concentrate.
 Apart from the gold concentrate if these tailings
are chemically analyzed, the same can be put to
use for ceramic tile making.

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Tailings Derived Out Of Gold
Mining contd..
 By substituting the required mineralogical
compositions for making ceramic tile mud, these
reserves can be best utilized.
 It is a deserving Research Project. Also it can be
used as reconstituted stone with a ceramic binder
or resin binder or a cement binder. Presently this
technique is in use at Europe as well as in Japan
and Taiwan

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Sandstone From Coal Mines

 Andhra Pradesh is one of the largest producers of

coal from Gondwana Basin.
 The main rock that is derived from the overburden
is sandstone with a thickness ranging from 30 to
150 meters.
 Though here and there the sandstone is weathered,
75% is hard, massive and varies in colour from
brown to grey.
 Compressive strength of this sandstone is 250 kg.,
for centimeter square.

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Sandstone From Coal Mines contd..

 These sandstones removed in the process of

opencast mining of coal by Singareni Collieries Co.
Ltd., out 11 leases are in huge area
 These sandstones can be made use of by making
decorative tiles, curb stones for pavement purposes.

 It has got good export value.

 Further, the weathered zone of sandstone can be
used for making sand, which is an essential
ingredient for construction activity.

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Sandstone From Coal Mines contd..

 Due to recent alarming situation of depletion of

ground water level due to indiscriminate removal
of sand from the riverbeds, processed sand gained
attention of the construction industry.
 Studies to make use of these sandstone deposits
for variety of purposes so that waste dumps can be
put to use is required.

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R&D for continuous studies on various
aspects

 In Andhra Pradesh a share on profits derived by

State owned Mining Corporation is set apart for
taking up R&D Activities
 Recently under this Scheme studies for
beneficiation of low grade barytes could be made
through National Metallurgical Laboratories
(NML) Jamshedpur, which has resulted fruitfully.
 Other states may also take up such programmes if
not yet taken up.

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Conclusion

 In many areas, we may find lot of mineral

waste. If extensive studies are made the
said waste also can be put to use and it adds
to the growth of the Nation by conserving
the valuable and exhaustible mineral
resource.

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THANK YOU FOR
PATIENT LISTENING

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