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The minerals extracted in the Buggerru area derived in great part from Planu Sartu and the Malfidano plateau; the latter was explored deep down by a pit, 102 meters in length, and the yards plotted at different levels, all leading to the “large excavation area” and linked amongst themselves via ore chutes and passages. Work was mainly carried out outdoors and the few tunnels still present are the fruit of mineral searches to locate other streams.
Once the crude ore was extracted it was destined to, according to its quality, the washeries or calcination furnaces that permitted the reduction of sterile obtaining rich calamine.
The products, once treated, were loaded onto “bilancelle” (small sailing boats) and transported to Carloforte, they were then taken to the zinc foundries of Northern Europe via steam ships.
Increasingly more expensive extraction costs forced the mining activity to resort to innovative technologies with the aim of cutting costs; concentrating mainly on improving the transportation of the crude ore from the extraction yards to the furnaces, washeries and berthings. Loading, and above all, the time consuming transportation of the wagons either manually or using mules, in 1892 saw the arrival of the steam engine locomotive. Animal traction was replaced with locomotives that pulled wagons capable of carrying 750 litres of material on a modern railway network.
Thanks to the modern railway transport, costs were cut and production was increased, but due to the gradual impoverishment of the crude ore it was necessary to make further improvements and that is how it was decided to build a washery capable of eliminating part of the sterile gangue and as a result providing a higher standard of “the mercantile” in other words the product for sale, given that the transformation into the final product, the metal, was previously carried out in the foundries of Belgium and France.
In just a few years, three washeries were built at Buggerru, the first of which in 1866, on the wharf denominated Lamarmora, but it was never really put into use due to problems with maritime properties; the other two, one at Buggerru 1878, below the Planu Sartu mine and the other at Malfidano between 1888-1890, built on the beach.
The latter, realised to treat poor and mixed minerals, represented a remarkable technological progress in that époque. All that remains present day is the wooden part, where as, the equipment held with in was removed between 1980-1990.
continuous innovations were not enough nonetheless to save the Buggerru mine: the wars, the decline of the mining sector, the numerous company changes brought about a reduction in activity and the finally its closure around the 60s.
