Based on information about the smelters that were studied, current through 2002, and making the assumption that the studied smelters operated at 92 percent of capacity, the author estimates that Chile, Europe, Japan and the United States generated (by means of pyromet-allurgical smelting) about 5 Mt (5.5 million st) of 99.99 percent copper and 11 Mt (12 million st) of useful sulfur-bearing products. As a consequence, 2.4 Mt (2.6 million st) of air emissions (20 percent SO_2, 80 percent CO_2) were generated along with 560 Mt (617 million st) of mill tailings, 1 Gt (1.1 billion st) of mine waste and 7 Mt (7.7 million st) of slag were generated.
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