New Laddertube could help mines save millions

Laddertube has been designed and developed by a Mining Engineer with ten years experience working in Australian underground mines. Laddertube is a safe secondary means of egress, easily installed and cost effective.
The Safescape Laddertube product is essentially a series of ladder sections joined to provide a straight line of ladder of any practical length to be used in underground mines as escapeway ladders and stope access ladderways.
Safescape Laddertube is made from resilient plastics material and creates a fully enclosed tube which does not allow ingress of water, dirt and rock. It will replace the currently used galvanised steel mesh caged ladders with a number of benefits in terms of safety and cost efficiencies.
The design of the Safescape Laddertube enables rapid evacuation and easy stretcher extraction. Being half the weight of its galvanised steel competitor Safescape Laddertubes can be installed quickly and safely. The Safescape Laddertube will not rust and degrade over time and does not require the maintenance that the current galvanised steel ladders do.
In 2009 Safescape completed an industry survey to establish the market for Laddertube. The results of the survey showed that Safescape Laddertube has the potential of creating value in almost every mine surveyed. While the product itself is cheaper, its installation is significantly more cost effective and the added benefit of decreasing the size of rises mined and reducing the ground support required leads to further savings.
Safescape Laddertube has the potential of saving the Australian resources industry in the order of $5,000,000 a year if every mine in Australia takes it up.
The first commercial installation of a Safescape Laddertube has now been successfully completed and trialled by the site ERT. It takes a team committed to innovation and safety to be the first mine to trial a product as distinctly different as Safescape’s Laddertube and we would like to take this opportunity to thank the team at Fosterville.
Australian owned and operated, Safescape is focused on safe, practical, innovative mining solutions - "Mining Think”
For more information visit: www.safescape.net.au