Gestão da mineração de areia no município de Guarulhos: aproveitamento de resíduos finos em cerâmica vermelha.

Abstract

The municipality of Guarulhos located in the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo has an area of 341 square kilometers and a population of approximately 1,200,000 inhabitants. It shows frantic urban growth what places it among major consumer centers of raw materials for civil construction. Mining activities in the municipality were of considerable importance in the past, being restricted nowadays to three quarries used for the production of crushed stone and four minings where extraction of sand is carried out. The hydraulic process is commonly used for ore extraction which results in a fine residue made up mainly of clay. This clay, currently considered as a by-product, is discarded in decanting basins which nearly always are old exploitation diggings. When mining exploitation comes to an end, the resultant diggings must undergo landscaping and formation of artificial lakes used as leisure areas. The objective of the proposed work is to make longer the mining lifetime as well as diversify its products through the utilization of the clay stored in the decanting basins as structural ceramics. As a whole the proposal is to present a contribution for the sustainable development of mineral activities near to great centers, currently in conflict with urban growth. Another proposal is to turn exploitation diggings into deposition sites of inert residue originated from civil construction works, this activity being integrated to the Civil Construction Residues Management Plan devised by the City of Guarulhos.