Sustainability Analysis of Marble Sector in Buner

Abstract

Marble is an ornamental stone, extremely popular for use as architectural and sculptural purposes. Nonrenewable marble resources in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan are mostly mined by conventional mining methods(producing irregular shaped blocks) instead of using mechanized mining producing regular shaped blocks.Conventional mining methods are more economical but are less environment friendly due to more quantity of wasteproduced. While, mechanized marble mining has a better recovery, reduces mining cost (processing and transportation)and is less environmentally hazardous. In this study a situation and sustainability analysis of marble mining operationsat Buner, the most productive marble mining cluster in KP, Pakistan, is carried out. Buner has about 1.4 billion tons ofmarble resources and contributes around 51 percent of total country’s marble production. Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP) is used on the basis of key sustainability factors (economic, technical, social, environmental and safety) forselection of most sustainable mining methods. The analysis revealed that conventional mining is least sustainable andproduces maximum waste, cracks, irregular shaped blocks, high working faces, back break, rock falls and accidents. Itwas concluded and recommended that these conventional mining methods should be replaced with the more sustainablemining methods i.e. semi-mechanized (controlled blasting / expansion material) at sunny grey and get black marbledeposits and mechanized mining (rope cutting) at Bampokha No.1 and Chagharzai white marble deposits.