Вестник МГТУ. 2020, Т. 23, № 1.

Introduction The Murmansk region is an area with the largest enterprises of the mineral resource complex of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation and the country as a whole. The region supports a major share of the national economy demand for phosphate ore, zirconium (baddeleyite), niobium, tantalum, rare-earth metals. Copper- nickel and iron ores, nepheline and ceramic raw materials, facing stone and building materials are also extracted. The region's mining industry sites and operations are the main employer in many cities and towns, where a third of the region's population resides, and its output represents more than 60 % of the region's industrial production. On the one hand, this makes the Murmansk region one of the nation's leaders in terms of socio-economic performance, while on the other, the mining industry has a major negative impact on natural ecosystems and the quality of the environment as a whole, since the development of non-renewable mineral resources brings major changes in and disturbance of natural communities. For example, 210.5 million tons of mining waste (concentration tailings, overburden and sinking rock, etc) was generated in 2017 alone (99.9 % of the combined waste generated in the Murmansk region), an increase of 5.7 % compared to the previous year1. The Sustainable Development Goals 2030 provide for the transition to sustainable models of production and consumption (Goal 12)2. This goal calls for "doing more and better with limited resources". In the Murmansk region, where the mining and metals industry forms the backbone of the regional economy, the efforts to achieve this sustainable development goal should be coupled with the search for new integrated approaches to ensure the development and implementation of environmentally friendly technologies for the extraction and processing of minerals, the search for managerial decisions that support the transition to a circular economy, the search for and implementation of technological and managerial innovations. In the Murmansk region, large number of natural protected areas (PAs) have been established (Боровичев и др., 2018). Furthermore new PAs are planned pursuant to the strategy3. So, further development of the mining industry is only possible under the condition of it's significant "greening", reducing the area of the landscape disturbed by mining operations and by the infrastructure being built, and under the condition of a major effort focused on the restoration of disturbed landscapes and vegetation cover. Environmental protection in the Murmansk region takes two forms - dynamic (reducing the negative impact of the mining, minerals, and metals industries on the residents, fauna and flora, soil, subsoil, atmosphere, ground and surface water, including restoration of disturbed areas/water bodies/atmosphere) and static (prevention of economic activity that disturbs ecosystems, creation of PAs). To date, a number of nature-like technologies have been developed for processing minerals and protecting the environment, rehabilitation of disturbed areas exposed to industrial air pollution, reclamation of the water and land areas polluted by oil and oil products, etc (Исаева и др., 2018; Корнейкова и др., 2018; Макаров и др., 2018). Studies have been undertaken aimed at inventorying and protecting biodiversity, including the development of scientific foundations for the conservation and monitoring of rare and endangered species, biologically valuable and rare plant communities, the preparation of Red Data Books and the rationale for the establishment of a system of PAs in the Murmansk region (Исаева и др., 2018; Константинова и др., 2011а; b). Since 2013, interdisciplinary research has been intensively growing in the region, aimed at finding ways to improve the socio-economic sustainability of the extraction and processing of minerals in the Arctic in the context of the nature preserving (Виноградова и др., 2015; Koivurova et al., 2015; Nysten-Haarala et al., 2015; Riabova et al., 2015; Suopajarvi et al., 2016; Soderholma et al., 2015). Results and discussion Technology solutions Presently, the total amount of the mining waste generated in the Murmansk region has reached about 8 billion tons. Keeping overburden and slag dumps, tailings and sludge storage facilities environmentally safe requires significant investment. Large volumes of displaced rock mass disrupt the existing geological balance, gas and dust emissions from mining operations, dusting of dumps and tailings, and the seepage of pollutants into surface and ground water adversely affect ecosystems and human health. Integrated and environmentally friendly development of mineral resources requires that the mining and processing waste is redeveloped as anthropogenic deposits4 (Lottermoser, 2011; Nevskaya et al., 2016; Riabova et al., 2015). For processing of low-grade natural and anthropogenic resources, the close-to-nature heap bioleaching technology appears to be promising (Watling, 2015). In the implementation of closed-loop circuits for the 1Доклад о состоянии окружающей среды Мурманской области в 2017 г. // Правительство Мурманской области. URL: https://gov-murman.ru/upload/iblock/a35/Doklad_za-2017-god_ITOG_1.pdf. 2Цели устойчивого развития человечества 2030 // ООН. URL: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ ru/sustainable-development-goals/. 3 Концепция функционирования и развития сети особо охраняемых природных территорий Мурманской области до 2018 года и на перспективу до 2038 года утверждена постановлением Правительства Мурманской области от 24 марта 2011 г. № 128-ПП. 4 Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe // OECD. URL: https://www.oecd.org/env/ outreach/EC-Circular-econonomy.pdf.