Protecting the environment

The environment and market demands for quality are, to a large degree, conditioning factors in the mining industry. Specialisation by producers and consumer industries is ever more necessary to keep step with development in the use of new mineral treatment techniques.

In this sense, R&D is focusing on the development of ever more sophisticated production processes, boosting the capacity in recycling sub products and restricting environmental impact, reducing the level of dust released into the atmosphere, as well as working towards the development of reforestation techniques that optimise the restoration of the land affected by the mining.

In 2001 and in the concessions currently in activity, the company can claim to have reforested 16 hectares of the exploited surface area by planting 8.600 pine and Holm oaks, 5.000 bushes and scattering grass and plant seeds to limit water erosion. For this a drip-feed irrigation system was installed to assure and accelerate the development of the pines.