RioPlease do not be such an absolute fool for the assembled folks here. You have to know that the last thing that any antimony miner wants is any trace of arsenic in its concentrate and the presence of arsenic in an antimony ore makes it useless for an antimony refiner. Floatation of any arsenic containing antimony concentrate is carried out to rid that con of all trace of arsenic or the deposit is scraped. Not one Mexican or Chinese miner deals with the rejected arsenic materials from that processing.
As for byproduct from smelting processes, at least read up on the subject before you babble. Yes there is a little recovery from a few reduction plants, but it is not the primary source for arsenic. The Chinese mine primary arsenopyrite ore and use the same sorts of works used for recovery of antimony from stibnite. Less than 10% of world arsenic production comes from smelter recovery of other ores. Those are simply facts and are put out by reputable source, as opposed to your standard spew of factless statements.
Carlin produces arsenic by placing it on leach pads and into tailings and does so to the tune of 50,000 tons of arsenic a year. Thats not 2-8 ppm Rio, or they would be mining 250,000,000 tons of ore a year. You know that ore at Carlin is high arsenic content, so why dream up a false figure? Do you think that the folks around here do not know that Carlin is extremely high in Arsenic? Its not a TRI excercise, Rio, the arsenic at Carlin is highly mobile and NPDES requires them to be very careful about how they handle all the water and any movement of materials from off of their tails, settling ponds and from the pit itself. None of their tails pass TCLP test Rio, but they sure are mining now are they not.
So, Rio, if they produce 1,200 tons of cobalt a year, they will produce 2400 tons of arsenic. Thats peanuts not the largest arsenic producer and certainly not the largest primary source of arsenic. The Chinese are producing 16,000 tons of arsenic a year, primarily from arsenopyrite from two deposits. Either of those operations dwarf FCO's couple thousand tons.
And Rio, assume for a second that your routine had merit, Lets assume that FCO did have to ship 2400 tons of materials to a hazardous waste facility. Heck figure that it will cost them a grand a ton to dispose of the arsenic. Thats only 2.4 million bucks a year Rio, only a nickle on the dollar for the revenues that the cobalt would bring in. Its a non-issue even if your correct and one which is simply not that big a deal.
Frankly, Rio, you have bigger worries. You really ought to be paying more attention to your job and to your weight. When a person gets as rotund as you are, they can easily die from a heart attack. It also tends to cut into who will hire you when they realize that you can not waddle up a hill anymore.
By the by, Rio, I had two beers in October and four in September and a roaring total of 8 in August. I do not drink hard booze save maybe a couple of times a year a glass of fine scotch, single malt at least 12 years old. Its one of those fine things in life worth doing occasinally. I have one and only one Booze up a year and that is at the NWMA annual and largely because its a time to relive things with old friends.
I think I hear a whole cheese cake crying for you in your fridge, you had better get going. . .