How to make a vital sector like mining an environmentally sustainable asset? As we know, mining has often been accused of having a major impact on the ecosystem, although over the years the sector has been able to renew itself with a view to containing the alterations made to the land. In this regard, there are companies dedicated to finding solutions capable of radically changing the future of this industry. One above all: Maiellaro Srl
“Maiellaro Srl was born in 2018 as a start-up specialising in mining,” says Dario Maiellaro, Owner and Sole Director of the company, as well as son of Paolo Maiellaro, a long-time quarryman and founder of the company. “The materials obtained through our mining processes can be used in multiple production cycles, ensuring versatility of use in the industrial and infrastructure sectors. We extract limestone material, transform and process aggregates, and supply raw material to the major construction groups involved in large-scale PNRR works in Campania. What we deal with is a necessary product, since aggregates derived from limestone material are essential for the production of asphalt and cement and for the construction of maritime works”.
At the time of its birth, Maiellaro Srl obtained authorisation from the Civil Engineers of Naples to complete the decommissioning and contextual environmental recovery of a historic limestone quarry within the Parthenio Park, on the slopes of Mount Fellino, in the municipality of Roccarainola. “We can almost say that we were born around this ambitious project,” says the administrator. “The Roccarainola site represents one of the most important mining poles in Campania, in terms of extension and strategic and market importance. In our plant, high quality aggregates are extracted, crushed and screened. The excellence of the products is the result of the combination of the properties of the deposit and rigorous monitoring of all processing phases, which also ensures constant regulatory compliance. The material extracted from the quarry is particularly pure and has chemical-physical-mechanical characteristics suitable for the most diverse uses in the field of construction, road, rail and port works and, in particular, meets the quality requirements for the production of ready-mix concrete and bituminous conglomerate”.
But the real innovation, pioneered by Maiellaro Srl’s technicians, concerns a fundamental aspect in the mining industry: environmental sustainability. “The sustainability of the mining activity is one of the priority objectives of our company, which has always been searching for environmental recovery methods that can guarantee the best results in terms of ecological and landscape compatibility,” Maiellaro explains. “With the Roccarainola quarry in Naples and the quarry in the municipalities of Salerno and Pellezzano, we received authorisation from the Campania Region to carry out the reclamation of mining activities that had taken place in the past using means, materials and techniques that were already obsolete at the time. Thus, we focused on experimenting with an environmental reclamation practice that proved very effective: we brought the slopes back to 45 degrees, thus reconstructing the morphology of the hillside. In other words, we tackled the most conspicuous aspect brought about by quarrying activity, namely the disruption of the site’s geomorphological configuration. Due to the location and the environmental context in which the quarries are located, the disruption of the physical balance of the landscape would have been quite evident. Thus, through planting, hydroseeding and grass planting, the area slowly resumed its natural development. In this way, we avoided the steps typical of disused quarries and we reduced the visual impact to zero. This is a truly innovative initiative, the first of its kind in Campania. The overall objective is to create environmental conditions similar to the original ones and in harmony with the surrounding landscape, through the development of a complex mosaic of grasslands and shrub and tree nuclei . All the species used for planting are native and fit perfectly into the present environmental context. In addition, all the areas are subject to maintenance and cultivation operations that are constantly monitored and supervised by expert personnel who are committed to producing six-monthly reports. We are talking about a long-term project, a path that will only end when the original environmental conditions of the area have been fully restored”.
Crushing plants equipped with new technological dust suppression systems, machinery powered by a mix of biodegradable additives, water and air that reduce water consumption by 50 per cent: through the use of the best innovative technologies on the market, Maiellaro Srl is taking the mining sector into the future. “Thanks to our wide range of machinery and equipment, we are able to carry out the mining process with efficiency and quality,” the owner concludes. “With the techniques we use, we try to make sustainable a sector, the mining sector, that is struggling to find low impact development. This is also why local authorities look to us with particular interest and a spirit of cooperation. We are always looking for solutions to make the industry sustainable. And with this approach, in the future, we aim to bring our second quarry, the one located between the municipalities of Salerno and Pellezzano, into a new phase of opening up to the highest standards of environmental sustainability”.
