Modern Quarrying Q3 2018

INDUSTRY NEWS

AfriSam’s ‘green’ charge

AfriSam has long led the charge in the cement sector for a cleaner environment, and continues to develop and conduct a range of initiatives to maintain the momentum toward a greener planet. This has a special significance as South Africa is among the world’s largest and fastest growing carbon emitters, according to Nivashni Govender, environmental specialist at AfriSam. “The country is one of the top 10 CO 2 emitters in the world, when measured per capita,” says Govender. “This places a huge responsibility on the cement manufacturing sector to be proactive, as South Africa has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020.” Having established its own environ- mental department as early as 1992, and developed an environmental policy just two years later, AfriSam has gone on to innovate several air quality management improvements. Upgrades in cement kilns and emission filters have led to the lowest dust emissions in Africa. “Our ongoing focus on alternative fuels and resources (AFRs) has allowed us to steadily reduce the amount of coal burnt in our cement kilns, which in turn contributes to lower CO 2 emis- sions,” she says. “For instance, we have

Nivashni Govender, environmental specialist at AfriSam.

developed a way of burning old tyres in our Dudfield plant – a strategy that also contributes significantly to address- ing the environmental hazards posed by tyres when they are disposed in a landfill.” Energy conservation is an ongoing programme, which has included the progressive installation of energy efficient lighting across the compa- ny’s range of cement, readymix and aggregate quarry facilities. As water scarcity becomes a more pressing issue for countries like South Africa, water conservation has also featured high on AfriSam’s environmental agenda, says Govender. l

Aspasa acts on quality issues

Disagreements over the quality of sand and stone delivered on site may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to the intervention of surface mining industry association, Aspasa, whose special task team is moving rapidly to formalise standards for the benefit of both producers and their customers. Since the establishment of a special technical committee on quality management, the association has made strides in addressing quality issues internally among its members, as well as assisting in the formulation of new national standards that will be used as a measure of quality among users of sand and aggregates. According to Saartjie Duvenhage, chairperson of Aspasa’s technical committee on quality management, a number of large strides have already been made to narrow the gap between customer’s expectations and the actual ability of producers to supply the required materials. “First and foremost, we have defined quality and what it means to everyone on the entire supply chain, from extraction, to processing and delivery to the customer’s site. In our case we define this as a product that meets a certain measure of excellence which is free from deficiencies and significant varia- tions,” she says. “To assist our members to achieve this, we have subsequently intro- duced our own quick guide to quality management. The 123 of Quality Management for Material Producers guide is designed to act as a guideline to quality management and explains the concept with eight steps for members to successfully implement their own systems,” she adds. l

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MODERN QUARRYING QUARTER 3 - 2018