The quarries on different sides of Tallinn are as different as night and day – while on the Harku side we see abandoned Soviet-era pits and ever-expanding active mining, on the Maardu side the mining was barely finished when the excavated pit was covered with soil, giving the natural environment a chance to recover.

Limestone Factories of Estonia OÜ, formerly known as Paekivitoodete Tehase OÜ, operated in the Maardu quarry. Together with Kuldar Õunapuu, a member of the board of the company, we went to the cleared out quarry to see the state of its restoration.

Two years ago, the company had already restored 50 hectares of the Maardu quarry and handed it over to the local government, the municipality of Jõelähtme, for the construction of technology parks. Now, another 24 hectares have been restored in half a year.

The Maardu limestone quarry was opened in 2004, while Limestone Factories was granted a mining permit specifically for this area – which has been cleaned up in the last phase – in 2019. Long before that, in Soviet times, it was actually a phosphorite mine, according to Kuldar Õunapuu. The shafts of the phosphorite mine, which were dug 15 metres into the ground, are still there and the current limestone mining operation actually took place above these abandoned shafts.

The full text of the article: https://forte.delfi.ee/artikkel/120343969/fotod-ja-video-maardu-karjaar-on-taastatud-loodus-tuleb-tagasi