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October - November 2015
MODERN QUARRYING
21
FACE TO FACE WITH
ASPASA
and Australia are safety leaders, and we
must work together towards eliminating
fatalities as our No 1 priority.”
Talking about ensuring employee
health, he says a big issue is the proposed
regulation of Respirable Crystalline Silica
(RCS).“All eyes are on Europe and industry
must push for an exposure limit value of
0,1 mg/m
3
. Water is becoming an increas-
ingly scarce resource, and it is an indus-
try imperative to minimise water usage
and any impacts on ground and surface
water.”
Talking about biodiversity, he says
industry has the potential to develop
international blue and green corridors,
with the industry becoming a global
observatory for biodiversity.
“We have to plan for future demand,
with most GAIN regions moving towards
national/regional 20-30 year aggregate
policies and plans. It will be likely become
twice as difficult to get permits in 20 years’
time,” he warns.
On climate change, he says “if you
believe in it, this could drive huge new
demand in infrastructure upgrades, flood
barriers and rehousing.
“We have to ensure future access to
resources as this is becoming increasingly
difficult, particularly around major urban
centres,” O’Brien says, adding that in the
future, underground extraction may be
economical in some situations.
“Aggregate associations have often
tended to only lobby defensively against
incoming legislation and regulation; the
time has now come to actively lobby
governments to develop the infrastruc-
ture of the future, with aggregates as a
key part of the solution. The industry is
becoming increasingly sophisticated,
demanding higher skills as the process
and service technologies continually
develop and therefore its future depends
on recruiting, training and developing
excellent, versatile, ambitious and entre-
preneurial people. Ours will no longer be
a male-dominated industry.
“I believe that we are only at the
beginning of a very exciting adventure;
the future potential of GAIN is enormous,”
O’Brien says.
And Pienaar agrees. The invitation has
been sent out to GAIN members and an
exciting programme has been developed,
which includes visits to some quarry oper-
ations and cement plants in the early part
of the week, followed by the GAIN meet-
ing and the IQSA/Aspasa conference on
the last two days.
Sectorial classification
Aspasa is pushing for the ability to define
its sector with its own set of rules, which
Pienaar says the EU has, as does Australia
and Canada. “We want to be recognised
as different from the mainstream mining
industry. Regulations are being lumped
into the same legislative framework as
mining, with the same rules applying for
our smaller operations.
“The burden on the financial resources
of small quarrying operations is huge and
often drives input costs beyond the price
attainable for sand and stone. It’s not
South African quarries that are members
of Aspasa are on par with the best
quarries internationally.