Terminal reducing water use
EMPLOYEE HEALTH ALSO A PRIORITY
EXPORTING coal might be the focus of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal but the health of its environment and its employees is also vital.
This was evident at last week’s briefing, where chief executive Alan Waller announced the headway the company had made in terms of environmental and employee health.
Speaking about the recent drought and its impact on operations, Waller said they had acquired an abstraction permit to tap into the borehole water supply.
“It was really driven by the drought requirements. We got an urgent application heard. Obviously, where we can alleviate any off-take from the natural water resources, we were encouraged to do that.”
He explained that one-third of their annual water needs could be met by water abstraction but they were currently using the plentiful rainwater they had stored following the immense downpours in that area.
“We’ve curtailed all of our water usage measures on-site. The critical things we use the water for is for dust management. It’s mainly environmental and then there’s the cleaning of our machines.”
The cleaning, he said, had to continue in the same vein because of the risk of fire.
“We can’t jeopardise the plant. In terms of all the other applications – even dust management – we basically ensured that we stayed within our emissions licences: we’ve not run our rain guns (which dust water on to the stored coal as a dust prevention measure) as frequently as we normally would. So in other words, we’ve changed our operating practices to reduce water consumption.”
He said they used between 1 million and 1.5 million litres of water a day.
According to their sustainability report, in an analysis in 2015, potable water usage had been reduced by 19% compared to 2014.
“In 2015, 179.27 million litres of potable water were used compared to 220 million litres used in 2014. This is an improvement on water usage during a tough year where the site had the lowest rainfalls on record.”
They said in the same report that the nature of the product they handled contaminated storm water.
“To prevent contamination of the surrounding environment, storm water and water collected from the coal stockpiles does not go directly into the marine environment; instead it is drained into settling ponds.”
In these ponds, contaminants are separated from the water before it can be pumped into an off site storage dam.
“At the dam, water is further chemically treated through a chlorination process and (we) use this recycled water for the suppression of dust, mostly from coal stockpiles.”
But it was not just the health of their environment that Terminal was concerned with.
It has also made an effort to protect their employees from illness.
“Last year, we achieved 5 million lost-time-injury-free man hours. Our target is zero injuries.”
During 2015, the Terminal put a number of health and wellness strategies in place, including a weight-loss competition.
“All employees were encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle by exercising and eating healthy. A healthy workforce is a happy workforce,” said the organisation.
They have also put an ongoing occupational hygiene programme for monitoring stress-ors in the workplace, such as noise, gravimetric dust and silica, vibration, belt splicing and welding fumes and thermal stress.
The company has also put in place a programme to manage and reduce the impact of musculoskeletal disorders.
“We do this through early identification, tracking and incidence reporting. Qualified biokineticists are working with us to improve employees’ posture through adjustments to the working environment and individual behaviours.”
Because of the nature of their operations, occupational health risks were of particular importance.
“Monitoring takes place annually… Lung function testing by spirometry is carried out regularly to address concerns regarding exposure in conjunction with chest X-rays.”
The company also won the SABCOHA Wellness Award from the Zululand Chamber of Commerce and Industry for their health care efforts.
“Our wellness policies and procedures take into account vulnerability, susceptibility and health and disease determinants, as well as compliance with South Africa’s legislation. We focus on planned interventions to protect the wellness of all employee and contractors against non-work related conditions.”