Cross-Cuts (September 07, 1990)

TOUTING VALUE-ADDED MATERIALS

“Canada has traditionally derived wealth from exploitation of natural resources. Canadians are failing to realize that this is no longer the high road to an increasing standard of living but, rather, a narrowing path leadinn to poverty. Today’s `high road’ is through value-added products and systems — and materials technology can frequently provide the `value added.'”

The preceding appeared in the July, 1990, issue of Technology Today, a publication of Ortech International (formerly the Ontario Research Foundation), a provincial government agency involved in research and development.

Dr. Peter McGeer, managing director of the Ontario Centre for Materials Research, is the author. The remainder of the article is not a harangueeagainst mining, but a reasonable plea for government recognition of the role advanced materials could play in our economy.

Interestingly, the four pages that followed Dr. McGeer’s piece were devoted to new materials. These sophisticated, value-added ed terials were created by none other than Inco Ltd.

MAC UNVEILS GREEN GUIDE

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) has issued a Guide for Environmental Practice, intended as “an amplification” of the association’s policy on environmental protection, promulgated last year.

Keith Hendrick, the new chairman of the Ottawa-based MAC, says the guide offers “an explanation in operational terms of good environmental practice. It is intended to assist member companies to interpret and implement the environmentnt policy.”

The guide illuminates the environmental implications of everything from exploration to the decommissioning of old mines. It is hoped that it will foster compliance with all applicable environmental laws, regulations and guidelines.

As well, the new guide attempts to fill in the gaps where environmental legislation is absent.

Hendrick, president of Toronto-based Noranda Minerals, was elected MAC chairman in June.

ALL ABOARD!

No one lives at the Casa Berardi mine site. It is too close to the neerest villages and towns to warrant a camp operation. However, having each worker drive his own car, or pool with a few others, was unacceptable to workers and management. So Inco Ltd. devised a designated driver scheme. Each driver is paid $900 per month for driving his load of workers round trip each workday in a company-supplied van. Naturally the gravel road is merciless, but the company services the vehicles. In order to stimulate responsible vehicle care, the mine will sell each van to the designated driver after two years of use.

The selling price? $1.

THE BUSINESS OF WASTE

Solving a problem by creating a money-making opportunity out of it is no mean feat. But Michael McMahon, managing director of the financial house Salomon Brothers, says mining companies might turn the trick with some of their environmental headaches. Writing in the AMC Journal, he notes that environmental problems can cost mining companies plenty of cash.

“Someone is making a profit from this cost,” he explains. “Figure out how to build a business out of the solution to your own problems.” Metallgesellschaft did it. It once paid smelters to process its particle waste and turn it into basic metals. Now the company’s environmental subsidiary charges the same smelters a fee for delivering their particle waste. And Metall retains the right to sell the reprocessed metal.

A BIG BORE

Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp. (ZMDC) has bored the largest diameter raise ever attempted in the south African country. The 3-metre-diameter raise was 87 metres long and took less than a week to ream. The raise was bored at the Shabanie asbestos mine, using a new 73RM-H raise drill manufactured by The Robbins Co. The drill features an in-line design for efficient power transfer and an hydraulic drive system with a 3-speed gearbox that provides many speeds.