The heavy metal content is one of the criteria for foundry dust commercial use. To assess the possibility of foundry dust use, it is necessary to analyze its composition, including the content of basic heavy metals, and its mechanical properties. The paper presents the results of research on foundry dust from one of the Polish foundries. The aim of the study was to assess the waste management based on its composition and content of heavy metals. Dust samples were taken from one of the Polish foundries, producing iron and steel castings. Samples were taken from several places in the foundry, i.e. from electric furnace dust collectors, shock grating unit, transport of moulding sands unit, pneumatic blast cabinet units and the regeneration of spent foundry sand units. Samples were taken twice from each place at the turn of 2017–2018. The total content of heavy metals such as Cd, Pb, Cu, Zn, Cr, Ni, Mn, and Fe for recovery and additionally Hg as environmental pollution was analyzed. Based on the results of the research, it was found that the dust from foundry furnaces and pneumatic cleaners can be used in metallurgy due to a high percentage of iron. It was found that the dust from casting cleaning, transport and regeneration department can be used in the cement or construction industry. In addition, an assessment of the mercury content showed that the re-use of this dust would not cause an environmental hazard. It was found that the profitability of foundry dust use depends on the stability of its composition and requires testing for each batch of dusts.

Slags issued from base metal smelting industry constitute a serious environmental problem in Upper and Lower Silesia (Poland). The waste is located in heavily urbanized areas, covers large surfaces and still may contain large quantities of potentially toxic metallic trace elements. This review paper summarizes all the major problems related to slag storage in Upper and Lower Silesia, including: (i) detailed characteristics of the studied slags, (ii) potential release of toxic elements and (iii) related risks for the surrounding areas and (iv) applications of slags for commercial purposes.

The efficient, stable and reliable operation of the blast furnace secures the proper quality of coke, which is one of the basic components of the blast furnace charge. In modern blast-furnace technology, when using substitute fuels, i.e. coal dust, the role of coke is extremely important. For this reason, the demands placed on its quality increase. Domestic coking plants have a limited base of Polish high quality coking coals at their disposal, therefore the full use of their coking properties is extremely important. The grain composition of the coal blend is one of the basic factors affecting the quality of the produced coke. This influence depends on the quantity and quality of coal components that make up the blend. In the conducted research, 21 coking coals, differing significantly in the degree of rank and origin (Polish and overseas coals), it was shown that the separated grain classes differ in properties, both coking properties and the degree of devolatalization during heating. In analyzing the obtained results, it was observed that the grain volume growth occurs essentially in the temperature range between the beginning and the maximum of fluidity. It has been shown that there is a linear correlation between the temperature corresponding to maximum fluidity and the temperature at which the maximum rate of evolution of volatiles enters. The presented phenomena accompany the emergence of coal expansion pressure during the coking process and they are its primary causes. The presented results can be an important guide for preparing the milling of coal for the coking process.

The Act of July 5, 2018 on Facilitating of Preparation and Implementation of Housing and Accompanying Investments allows such investments irrespective of the existence of a local development plan or determination of use of land in the local development plan. In other words, the abovementioned investments may be implemented on land with a completely different designation according to the local development plan, as for example the mining of minerals. The location of the investment is decided by a resolution of the municipal council. If the planned location is to be situated within the boundaries of documented mineral deposits and the so-called „mining areas”, it needs, among others, to be agreed with the appropriate geological administration authority. Not taking a position within 21 days is considered as a consent. With reference to the deposits not covered by mining licenses, the Act does not indicate the premises that should be taken into consideration while providing such consent. There is a concern that this may lead to the development of the land in a way that will cause the subsequent extraction of the mineral impossible.

The paper considers the modeling and estimation of the stochastic frontier model where the error components are assumed to be correlated and the inefficiency error is assumed to be autocorrelated. The multivariate Farlie-Gumble-Morgenstern (FGM) and normal copula are used to capture both the contemporaneous and the temporal dependence between, and among, the noise and the inefficiency components. The intractable multiple integrals that appear in the likelihood function of the model are evaluated using the Halton sequence based Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique. The consistency and the asymptotic efficiency of the resulting simulated maximum likelihood (SML) estimators of the present model parameters are established. Finally, the application of model using the SML method to the real life US airline data shows significant noise-inefficiency dependence and temporal dependence of inefficiency.

The problems related to construction production are multi-faceted and complex. This has promoted the search for different methods/approaches for analizing the data which supports the decision-making process in the construction industry. In the article the authors focus their attention on well-known methods and tools, and on some new approaches to solving decision-making problems. The aim of the article is to analyze the methods used to analyse data in a construction company, convey their advantages and disadvantages, and specify the degree of efficiency in the discussed area.