Air

• Dust can be produced where heavy machinery is moving around the site, particularly in windy weather,
• Noise is generated from mine sites (concentrator, heavy machinery, pumps, etc) as well as from the processing sites where some machinery is operating 24 hours per day,
• Waste gases are produced by the Synthetic Rutile Plant.

The mining operation employs a number of techniques to minimise these effects on the air.

Dust is controlled using water trucks which spray water onto roads. In addition walls or "bunds" are constructed from soil around areas being mined. These prevent mobile air-borne dust from leaving the site.

This photo is taken from a wall or bund constructed around an area being mined, to help reduce spread of dust.

Noise from the mining and processing operations is reduced by:

• using insulation in concentrators,
• constructing bunds around areas being mined,
• using flashing lights instead of reversing beepers on mine machinery (where approved) and
• maintaining buffer zones around the plant so that noise doesn't affect nearby residences.

Bund wall constructed to reduce noise.

The Synthetic Rutile plant produces waste gases. These pass through a scrubber and an afterburner which remove most of the impurities, before the gas is released to the atmosphere via a very tall chimney stack. The gas released is mostly steam, with small amounts of sulfur dioxide (chemical formula SO₂) and tiny mineral particles or particulates (eg. fly ash).

The synthetic rutile plant, with steam being released from the stack.

The steam is harmless to the environment, and because the stack is very tall, the other waste materials are dispersed by the wind over a large area and therefore do no harm to the environment.

Iluka Resources Ltd has licenses from government authorities that set maximum limits of emissions that the company is allowed to discharge into the environment. The operation is required to stay within these limits in order to continue operating.