Abstract

Although life cycle of mining and mineral processing systems, including copper production, have been carried out since the mid to late 1990s; these studies are limited to the ore extraction and mineral processing, not considering waste management, which is the most important part of metal production systems when assessing their environmental performance. In addition, the low level of detail in mineral production systems included in conventional LCA tools (not accounting for emission at unit process level) lead to oversimplifications and underestimation of true impacts. This paper presents the life cycle assessment model developed by the authors to assess the impacts of copper extraction and processing, including waste management. The model is designed at unit process level and accounts for emissions to the different environmental compartments (air, water, soil). The model functionality is illustrated through a case study of a Chilean mining and mineral processing operation. The sensitivity of the LCA impact category indicator scores to the variation of input parameters, such as the copper ore grade, mine stripping ratio, metal recovery efficiency and electricity source mix are also evaluated and presented. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.