Environmentally-Oriented Management of Dimension Stone Industry

Isfahan Province, which possesses 256 active dimension stone mines, produces almost 40% of Iran’s raw stone. It also has 1550 stone-cutting plants which produce more than 50% of processed stone of the country. Therefore, this province is regarded as the axis of Iranian dimension stone industry. However, nearly 9 Mt. wastes of dimension stone are produced in the industry annually, while this amount is estimated to be about 18 Mt for the whole country. Discarding these wastes in nature will cause severe environmental problems such as negative geochemical effects on natural ecosystem, contamination of water, flora devastation and negative effects on regional ecosystems and animal life, landscape distortion, dispersion of dust and toxic substances in the atmosphere, soil deformation and finally noise pollution. These facts mean that we need a proper stone waste management. This management is introduced as a recommendation package containing three headlines. The first section deals with the reduction of produced wastes. This reduction can be achieved by primary studies before mining, applying new mining technologies and methods of enhancing the block quality prior to cutting and also employing modern technologies in stone-cutting plants. The second section introduces reuse of wastes by developing recycling units in cutting stone complexes. Finally, the third section elaborates on environmentally friendly dumping of residuals via the selection of appropriate dumping sites and using appropriate methods to minimize the reaction between wastes and natural ecosystems of the area. It is possible to have an environmentally friendly industry or even an industry without wastes, provided that this recommendation package is fully employed.