The cost of many materials germaine to man's socio-economic status is more closely related to the cost of handling it in quantity than to its intrinsic value. Man in Australia has graduated from often being 'below the salt', because it was rare and expensive, to today observing mountains of it stockpiled on our west coast due almost entirely to more sophisticated handling techniques. The basic production process -evaporative concentration from sea water in sunlight -has remained unchanged.

Australia's economic growth has been based on exports. It is a leading exporter of grain, salt, sugar, coal, mineral sands, iron ore, bauxite, alumina and primary metals, including nickel, zinc, aluminium and copper. The growth of these export industries has been due to an accumulation of many skills, of which a most significant one has been efficiency in handling the materials from farm or mine to processing, and storage to the export port and loading onto the ships carrying the product away from our island nation. Such export products compete on an open world market, and the material handling costs, particularly for Australia, with its high cost of labour and its export ports so often remote from the farm and mine, have demanded the compensating features of large scale operation and minimum per unit handling costs in order to make the products cost competitive. Australian technology has met this demand, learning from overseas but often adopting, modifying and developing the older techniques. Handling plant in this country has been constructed the equal of and very often superior to any in the world in cost efficiency.

The following examples, in Australia, of major material handling units matching in size and efficiency the best available, indicate the top edge of the country's technical achievements in the material handling field.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering