Environment: Water, Air, Land,

Waste & Recycling

Water: In order to make a brick, we mix clay shale (hardened clay) with water to form it into its rectangular shape.  Our production water comes from on-site wells or nearby rivers and does not involve any treated water for human consumption. Each plant site uses about 5000 gallons per day which represents only the amount of water that a farmer would use to irrigate a 75 acre farm one single time. In fact, the amount of our water usage is far less than the annual rainfall occurring on our property sites. Also, we are careful to make sure that process water used in other areas of the facility gets recycled back into our brickmaking so that no process water leaves the site.

Air: Our brickmaking production takes place in enclosed buildings where we have modern equipment in place to reduce the amounts of dust and to reduce the gases released into the air. We employ the use of modern scrubbers that remove many potentially harmful gases. And, that equipment allows us to operate with far fewer emissions than the limits set by state air permits. In the plant environments that may have potential to create dust, we employ dust gathering bag filters to improve interior air quality.  Outdoors, we regularly water unpaved surfaces to reduce dust creation during dryer periods.

Land: Clay shale is found in certain parts of the country (depending on geological makeup) and it is generally found in hilly areas, lying close to or just below the earth’s surface. As a result, mining shale occurs mostly on the surface with a front-end loader and mines rarely get deeper than 25 feet. At no time do mines get deep enough to affect or impact the area water table. All Pine Hall Brick, mines are located within 10 miles of the facility they serve. We mine about five acres per year for each brick facility and when the surface shale is extracted, we regrade the area to control erosion and water runoff while planting new trees or grasses.  Our preferred reclamation effort calls for planting seed bearing plants like milo, millet, lespedeza, and wheat to encourage the genesis of wildlife to the reclaimed area. These plants are effective in that they provide a food source for wildlife and their growth pattern allows for wildlife to roam among the plants to find seedlings along the ground. As the new ecosystem develops, trees begin to grow through natural fertilization.

Waste & Recycling: Our goal is to minimize waste through recycling. The following represents our major efforts in this area:

• Recycle process water for brick production
• Recycle all un-fired brick into new production
• Recycle kiln waste heat to dry brick
• Recycle harmless waste re-agents for farm use (donation)
• Use recycled waste wood for fuel (alternate use fuels)
• Use waste restaurant grease for fuel (alternate use fuels)
• Recycle fired brick (not sold) into brick mulch for landscaping
• Recycle mine site overburden into land reclamation