PROFILE: Pofadder’s queen of copper Shirley Hayes
From admin clerk to the top, with a little help from a rented front-end loader
10 August 2023 - 05:00
After being retrenched from her job as a quarry manager in 2001, Shirley Hayes struck a deal with the owner of the nearby Blesberg mine: she would rehabilitate the abandoned site for free and he would buy back whatever minerals she was able to extract.
With only a clapped-out Nissan bakkie, a rented front-end loader and 50l of borrowed diesel, she and her team of eight started sifting through the trash heaps in 40˚C heat. “At the end of the first day we had enough feldspar to buy another 50l of diesel,” says Hayes, now 55. “And so on.”..
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