Sustainable rock excavation in Poland

The Malopolska region in South-East Poland has been nominated as a European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) for 2016. The award is granted to the regions which present the most future-oriented "visions of entrepreneurial development", and the same spirit can be felt in the various sandstone quarries hosted by the region. Using blast-free quarrying these dimension and crushed stone producers are achieving higher efficiency with less impact on the environment and surrounding villages, i.e., Sustainable Productivity!

The sandstone on the northern slopes of the Tatra mountains is suitable raw material for dimension stone and aggregate production. The rock formations are fragmented and therefore relatively easy to excavate without drilling and blasting. As most of the surrounding areas are inhabited, local quarries are forced to reduce noise and vibration emissions from their process. As a result, blast-free excavation methods have become popular in the area.

Extra benefits
An additional benefit of blast-free excavation is that it enables the boulder size to be adjusted according to demand from the customer. For example, President CzesÅ‚aw Szarek of Kopalnia Piaskowca Barcice - Szarek stated: “At the moment we have a lot of requests for large boulders for road and river bank construction. Therefore we try to extract big boulders as much as possible because the smaller fractions needed for crushing come as a by-product.”

In the Barcice quarry the rock formation varies a lot and operators change the tool frequently using a quick coupler. In the easiest areas stones can be loaded directly with an excavator bucket or extracted with a mechanical ripper. However, in most of the quarries hydraulic breakers are needed for excavation and secondary reduction of oversized boulders. The choice of tool also depends on the required boulder size.

The company uses two Atlas Copco breakers for excavation work. A versatile HB 4700 DP (Dust Protector) for lighter primary breaking and secondary reduction of oversized stones, and an HB 7000 DP for the toughest primary breaking and extraction of large boulders. The same carriers are used for loading or mechanical extraction when the breakers are not needed.

Changing needs
Another quarry, Kopalnia Piaskowca - Wolimex - Męcina, produces mainly aggregates for the construction of highways highways, as well as a quantity of sized blocks used for further processing. Therefore most of the stones excavated must fit the feeding size of the primary crusher and the boulder size must be reduced with a hydraulic breaker.

The surface layer of the hill has been quite easy to excavate and Wolimex extracts boulders for secondary crushing using a 120 ton Hitachi excavator. Two Atlas Copco HB 4700D breakers are used on the smaller 50 ton excavators. The breakers are only used for primary breaking on the most difficult rocks .

“When a quarry goes deeper, the rock formation and stone quality become more difficult to excavate and breakers are needed much more. We need to invest in a heavy hydraulic breaker to be used for primary breaking with existing carriers,” says quarry manager Bogdan Chudy from Wolimex.

New deposits for production
Although the number of suitable rock deposits for quarrying is not a limiting factor in the area, the authorities guide the production to areas where it causes less harm to the environment and set precise regulations to retain the natural shape of the landscape as far as possible. Partly due to this factor, quarries are relatively small and new deposits are needed to maintain the required level of production.

The new PorÄ…bka 1 mine was recently opened, at which the only tool used for primary and secondary breaking is an Atlas Copco HB 3100 hammer. It is mounted on a Volvo EC 360 B excavator, meeting to the full the heavy duty demands of quarry work. As CEO Jan CieÅ›lak puts it: “We have now reached a level of production at which only this one breaker is required for both primary and secondary breaking.”

While the construction business in Poland is growing at the same rate as in the rest of Europe the demand for dimension and crushed stones is also growing. With the help of future-oriented authorities and new sustainable rock excavation methods Malopolska region is ready to take a bigger bite of the growth.

Associated Businesses

  • Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7EA