UNESCO also intervened to legitimize its value: at the end of 2017, the art of dry stone walls was inscribed on the List of intangible cultural heritage to be protected and safeguarded.
The reasons have distant roots: knowledge of this technique has been passed on among ancient rural communities to today's professionals. Always with a single objective: to prevent landslides and floods, fight against soil erosion and desertification, while fully respecting the environment. The inscription groups together eight European countries in which the construction techniques of dry stone walls are different but all carried out "in an artisanal way" or with stones on top of each other, without the use of other materials except in certain cases. , dry land.
Over time, however, even the oldest techniques have added to the work of "craftsmen" - a skilled workforce which is unfortunately disappearing - that of new equipment, able to finish the job faster and ensure maximum precision. : like the MB-G sorting tongs, whose claws grip, move, place stones, rocks or stones of all types and sizes with extreme precision and delicacy. As in three different construction sites - one in France, one in Germany and the other in Slovenia - where the MB clamp was chosen to build dry stone walls precisely because its inclined plate allowed it to have a field of 'wider action and placing stones with pinpoint precision, unlike other equipment - like the digging bucket - with which this would have been impossible. It is also possible to install a tine kit, which makes it easier to grip and control materials with particular weights and shapes.
Also for the walls made with wooden posts, the operators chose to work with MB Crusher products, in this case crushing and screening buckets The reason is simple: by crushing and screening on site, it is possible to recover the waste and use it immediately as drainage or general purpose. This is what an Italian company did, which in a reconstruction site of a collapsed retaining slope used the two MB tools: cancellation of logistics costs, use of local materials, speed of construction, no difficulties due at the height of the escarpment.
A kind of evolution of dry stone walls is the new technique of reinforced earth, the naturalistic engineering solution that allows concrete walls to be replaced by structures with less environmental impact. Indeed, as for dry stone walls, this technique uses local filling materials, keeps a natural appearance, is more elastic to the stresses of the ground and is easy to install and maintain. The case of a Venetian company commissioned to build a reinforced earth retaining wall to replace the existing concrete masonry is significant. Sonia, the geotechnical engineer for the construction company, explains how they solved the waste management issues and the limited room for maneuver due to the slope of the mountain road.
“To carry out this work, we relied on the MB Crusher equipment for the crushing and screening stages. We were thus able to save on the purchase of new materials by crushing the stones recovered from the sifting of the earth and which we would otherwise have had to dispose of at substantial costs to obtain the stone we used for drainage. The screened soil, on the other hand, was immediately reused for laying inside the formwork. I thank MB Crusher for the advice which allowed us to save money in terms of time and money, while respecting the environment "
Isn't it every company's dream to have versatile and easy-to-use equipment in their fleet that allows you to work with precision, speed and cost savings?