Environmental protection

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Environmental management is one of the essential elements of the business of the company Rudnik and flotation Rudnik on the road to sustainable development. Responsibility towards nature is among the most serious obligations of companies and employees. Accordingly, the company has identified the key impacts of its business on the environment and established mechanisms to reduce the consumption of natural resources, with clearly defined goals.

Guided by the Environmental Policy, the company in its daily work, respects and applies national laws and the highest international environmental standards – ISO 14001.

The monitoring project defines the monitoring program for each environmental component separately, the appropriate legal basis relating to sampling and monitoring procedures, monitoring methods, sampling location, sampling time and sampling time and duration and monitoring.

The following monitoring is performed in Rudnik and flotation Rudnik doo in accordance with the legal basis, the results of which the company regularly submits to the competent body for environmental protection and line ministries:

  • Measurement of emissions of hazardous and harmful substances into the air
  • Water quality measurements (waste, surface, groundwater, drinking water)
  • Waste management

AIR QUALITY MONITORING

Air quality monitoring in the company is performed in accordance with the Emission Measurement Plan in the company and the following regulations:

  • Law on Environmental Protection (“Official Gazette of RS, No. 135/2004, 36/2009 – other law, 43/2011 – US decision, 14/2016, 76/2018, 95/2018 – other law and 95/2018-other law)
  • Law on Air Protection (Official Gazette of RS 36/09 and 10/2013)
  • Regulation on emission limit values for air pollutants (Official Gazette of RS 71/10)

Based on the requirements and in accordance with legal obligations, measurements of air pollutant emissions are carried out.

Tests include:

  • determination of emission of powdery substances from the dedusting system, secondary andtertiary crushing and sieving of polymetallic lead, zinc and copper ores;
  • determination of emission of powdery substances from emitters of the primary crushing dedusting system.

Measurement of pollutant emissions from emitters of the Rudnik and flotation plant Rudnik doo includes the measurement of powdery substances and is performed twice a year.

Powdered substances are the only pollutants that can occur from the emitter during the operation of the primary crushing plant and the secondary and tertiary crushing and screening plants of polymetallic ore.

WATER MONITORING

Water quality monitoring is performed according to the following regulations:

  • Law on Environmental Protection (“Official Gazette of RS, No. 135/2004, 36/2009 – other law, 43/2011 – US decision, 14/2016, 76/2018, 95/2018 – other law and 95/2018-other law)
  • Law on Waters (Official Gazette of RS 30/10, 93/12)
  • Rulebook on determination of water bodies of surface and groundwater (Official Gazette of RS 96/2010)
  • Rulebook on parameters of ecological and chemical status of groundwater and parameters of chemical and quantitative status of groundwater (Official Gazette of RS 74/11)
  • Regulation on emission limit values for pollutants in water and deadlines for their achievement (Official Gazette of RS 67/11, 48/2012 and 1/2016)

Measurements are performed at the following measuring points:

  • Exit from the mine pit
  • Exit the flotation plant
  • Exit from the side collector
  • Drainage water
  • Surface waters – Mine stream before and after wastewater inflow
  • Groundwater from 5 piezometers
  • Drinking water at several measuring points in all plants

Sampling and analysis is performed by the authorized laboratory of the Institute of Public Health from Kraljevo, four times a year. On that occasion, chemical-physical and microbiological analyzes are performed using accredited methods.

There is also a continuous measurement of the amount of discharged wastewater into the public watercourse with an ultrasonic device – limnigraph, and the Report on the amount of discharged water is regularly submitted to the relevant Ministry of Water Management.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

The field of waste management is recognized as very important for improving the responsible behavior of companies, given that in the process of production and processing of ore, different types of non-hazardous and hazardous waste are generated. The company has developed the concept of responsible and efficient waste management, which includes waste separation at the place of origin, careful labeling, temporary storage of waste in controlled and safe conditions, as well as their delivery to proven long-term operators for final treatment. Rudnik and flotation Rudnik doo, as a socially responsible company, delivers waste exclusively to operators who have a waste management license, obtained from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Republic of Serbia.

The company has an internal document on climate change. Adaptation to climate change has social implications in terms of its impact on health, prosperity and human rights.

The basic goal in the part of environmental management that the company has set for itself is constant improvement of the environment and whose realization it achieves through programs of investment in sustainable development, improvement of energy efficiency and constant training and expansion of knowledge of its employees about the environment.

As a socially responsible company, in its Strategic Plan, the direction of the company’s movement towards a sustainable, functional and modern system of environmental protection and sustainable development is defined as one of the priorities.