Remediation of Iron Ore Tailings From Brumadinho (Brazil), Polymeric Waste From Polyester Fabrics and From PET Bottle Powder Based on the Production of Ecological Bricks

Mining activities generate large amounts of waste in the form of mud that is disposed of in containment dams. When such dams collapse, serious accidents can happen, like the one that occurred in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, killing 272 people and contaminating rivers and large areas of native forests. On the other hand, there are also two types of plastic waste which after production and use are disposed of in the environment or landfills, causing contamination and leading to the release of microplastics: (1) scraps from the textile industry and (2) polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic packaging. This work presents a proposal for the remediation of three waste materials (iron ore tailings, polyester fabric waste, and PET plastic waste). In this sense, two kinds of bricks were produced, one of them combining iron ore tailings and polyester fabric wastes, and the other, combining iron ore tailings and PET plastic wastes. Both the bricks were evaluated for the construction of social housing. The results show that these bricks are similar to soil-cement bricks, with which windbreak walls and walls of residential buildings can be built, supporting all the loads concerning a popular Brazilian housing project. It can be said that a new composite material has been developed, with appropriate technical properties such as compressive strength and water absorption, to reduce these three environmental liabilities and the consumption of virgin raw materials, normally removed from the environment, in addition to reducing the release of those pollutants into the environment.