With regards to work safety, health- and environmental protection the enterprise WESTKALK Vereinigte Warsteiner Kalksteinindustrie GmbH & Co. KG, Warstein/Germany, is planning to install an own extraction system for limestone spillage in their jet mill at the factory in Kallenhardt (Figure 1). This is supposed to improve the plant’s cleanliness and reduce dust exposure for staff members and surroundings long-term. WESTKALK budgets a five-digit number sum total in this year’s investment program.
The development of dust and spillage is oftentimes not preventable when it comes to mining, fracturing, and screening of limestone. Especially the transport of limestone on conveyor belts causes spillage to accumulate on floors, paths and corners or recesses. Like that, material is formed on the whole premise. Due to this, several tons of valuable resources get lost within each year. In order to curb this, changes in the jet mill are to be performed this year. At present WESTKALK conducts root cause analyses to determine the amount of spaces the dust accumulates in. A high-performance industrial vacuum cleaner is supposed to help with this at the factory in Kallen-hardt to prevent the dust depositing as far as possible.
Currently a suction vehicle, which is rented by WESTKALK externally, takes care of the dust – not without disadvantages for the entire neighborhood. “That’s why we want to start to get rid of the cause. Not just the result”, says Guido Mausbach, the company’s technical manager. With more than 1,500 € rental fee per vacuum truck it is not just expensive to hire the services but „extremely loud as well“, Mausbach says and refers to neighborhood complaints: “Unfortunately there’s only one possible location for the vacuum truck and if the wind happens to blow from an unfavorable direction, our neighbors can hear the truck very distinctly.”
So far, the vacuum trucks have been deployed twice a year at the plant. “That’s the only way to thoroughly clean the plant.” With their investment decision WESTKALK also bears in mind their surroundings. With a regular cleaning of the premises, there’s supposed to be significantly less pollution and strain for environment and residents. (WESTKALK/Si.)
