CDE Encourages Quarries to Rethink Waste

CDE, a leading supplier of sand and aggregate washing solutions for the waste recycling and natural minerals processing sectors, is encouraging materials producers to reappraise their waste streams to get more value from their operations, particularly as the rate of global resource extraction continues to accelerate, finite natural materials continue to deplete, and barriers to gain approval for new mineral extraction sites mount.

Mining and quarrying operations generate significant volumes of waste by-product as part of their process but within these waste streams there is opportunity, CDE's Eunan Kelly, Head of Business Development for Europe explains, "Overburden, scalpings, crushed rock fines or quarry dust – they're part and parcel of the mining and quarrying process, and an inevitable by-product. But a product they are. Too often these masses are categorised as 'waste' or low value material when in reality they possess significant potential."

CDE say that their patented washing and processing allows quarry operators to transform "unwanted" by products, that may have been sent to landfill, into high-value sand and aggregate products that can be sold straight off the belt. Longcliffe Quarries, based in the UK, had historically discarded its claybound limestone scalpings, but feasibility studies and material testing found there is a market for products recovered from this waste stream. Powered by a 220 tonnes per hour state-of-the-art CDE wet processing plant, up to six different products are being extracted from clay contaminated material.

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