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Cobus van Vuuren is passionate about rock – as one might expect of the general manager of quarrying for the Higgins Group. And he’s on a mission to educate the unaware end-user in the elemental importance of aggregates. BY RACHEL MACDONALD
“I had worked for 25 years in hard rock quarries in South Africa, when I came to New Zealand for a holiday,” he explains. “I met the Higgins family and talk cropped up of a potential opportunity down here. I basically couldn’t resist the temptation. That was a decade ago now!” At the time, the firm’s quarrying division was fragmented, and van Vuuren’s first task was to bring it all into line and facing the same direction. With that process of formalisation achieved, it’s now a highly successful business line for the company. And it’s one whose results continue to improve through the adoption and adaptation of modern technology, too. Van Vuuren won the Niemac Award for Innovative Plant Operation or Work Method Within the Industry at this year’s quarrying conference, for a telemetry system now incorporated into the company’s front-end loaders. “It’s basically a request and reporting function, to streamline accurate service provision,” he says. “When a docket is created for the job, it is transmitted to the loader operator and appears on the screen in his cab. It tells him what product to deliver to the truck and how much. Once the truck is loaded, that information is transmitted back to base, where it can be double-checked against the initial job request.” Van Vuuren developed the device in conjunction with RDS Systems in Hawke’s Bay and technology provider TincanIT. However, business advance isn’t van Vuuren’s only interest. He is a full-on and vocal advocate for the quarrying industry in general. “The public really has no idea of the sheer size and importance of the sector, and the extent to which we depend on it. I think that’s because these people are not our first line of customers,” he says. “Although they’re our end consumers, they have no clue of the scope in which aggregates contribute to their everyday life, from road surfaces and concrete to paint, or the toothpaste they use twice a day.” As he points out, New Zealanders consume around 10 tonnes of aggregate per person per year. “But I think most people have this negative impression of the industry overall. They see the holes in the hillsides that are a result of our activity, but don’t understand how fast that site can be rehabilitated and returned to nature once it’s worked out. They push for zoning changes to facilitate subdivision and urban sprawl without considering how they’re going to carry out that building if re-zoning pushes us out. We can’t just pick up and move operations – we’re limited by the availability of the raw material.” As far as the activity’s impact on the environment goes, he holds up power pylons as a comparative example. “Stop anywhere in New Zealand next to a highway, and take a photo. It will be stamped all over with power lines. People are fine with that, though, because they hit a power switch every night and appreciate what electricity does for them. Compare the percentage of times you’ll ever see a quarry in the view and it’s minimal, but without them, civilization as we know it would come to a stop.” As he points out, if the quarrying industry withheld its services for a fortnight, as the radiographers have just done, the building, building maintenance and roading sectors would grind to a halt, among others. And he sees the same lack of respect apparent in the way the local bodies treat quarrying. “We can’t just create a quarry anywhere; we need to go where the resources are. Then, once we find the right spot, we need consent to mine it – we get to jump through a hundred local government hoops, and are often left pretty much without a voice at the end of the process. “Next thing you know, our customers are buying up the surrounding properties, and where you didn’t have neighbours, you’ve suddenly got masses of them. And the planners are not required to consult with us when they subsequently change the zoning to allow development. Then, by the time the next 10-year district plan submission period rolls around, it’s too late for us. And that can be hugely expensive for the community – we have to be so incredibly vigilant all the time!” In Auckland, for example, the number of quarries has had to reduce dramatically. Yet, the population consumes around 15 million cubic metres of aggregate a year, which is now having to be transported in from the Waikato. That pushes the cost up immediately. “This is something planners are going to have to wake up to before the expenses get out of hand. They need to understand the sector, and its requirements – and our importance to the country – more closely,” says van Vuuren. “This is a highly professional, rigorously qualified industry, contributing enormously to the way society functions. We’re taking the message into the educational institutions on our recruitment drives, but how are we to show everyone else?”
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The Higgins group of companies owns 10 aggregate mining operations. Seven of those quarries are in full-time production, and there’s a mobile crushing plant that services a number of temporary sites. And this whole complex business of extraction is overseen by Cobus van Vuuren, who has been with the company for 10 years.