Displaying items by tag: plastics

Canada: Geocycle and Lafarge Canada, together with the Department of Natural Resources Canada, have opened a new low-carbon fuel plant at the Lafarge Canada Brookfield cement plant in Nova Scotia. The facility, which cost over US$7.5m and received US$2.6m in federal funding, will convert 14,000t/yr of discarded materials headed for landfill into low-carbon fuels, reducing the plant's reliance on fossil fuels and its carbon emissions by over 12,000t/yr. The materials to be repurposed include plastic and construction and demolition materials. The cement created at the facility will be used to make concrete for construction projects in the local area and is expected to create jobs for the local community.

President and CEO of Lafarge Canada (East) David Redfern said "Cement is a vital component of infrastructure projects that contribute to economic growth. By implementing sustainable and innovative solutions to reduce our environmental impact, we're serving the needs of our customers and the communities in which we operate both now and in the future. Our continued collaboration with Geocycle Canada reinforces our commitment to invest and advance circular construction in Canada."

Head of Geocycle North America Sophie Wu said "At Geocycle, our solutions are circular by design. We are happy to take another significant step in our ongoing partnership with Lafarge Canada. This is a great example of our work toward the decarbonisation of the construction industry in Canada."

India: Adani Group subsidiary Ambuja Cements won the Circular Economy Silver Award at the SKOCH Awards 2024 in New Delhi. News Online has reported that the award recognises the company’s success in achieving six-times plastic negative status through the co-processing of plastic as alternative fuel in its cement plants.

Adani Group cement CEO Ajay Kapur said “This recognition underlines our steadfast commitment to driving sustainable development through innovative business practices that prioritise the responsible use of natural resources. We remain resolute in our mission to contribute to the holistic growth of our nation.”

Taiwan: Asia Cement Corporation tested its waste wind turbine blade processing capacities using 12t of blades earlier in November 2023. The cement producer had previously processed 9t of waste turbine blades for use in its plants up to the end of October 2023. Asia Cement Corporation says that the waste consists of fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP), which is 60% silicon dioxide, calcium oxide and aluminium oxide and 40% polyester. The polyester can replace fossil fuels as alternative fuel (AF) for cement plants, while the other chemical compounds can serve as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).

Philippines: Republic Cement has signed a deal with ACS Manufacturing to receive sorted plastic waste. Republic Cement’s waste management subsidiary Ecoloop will shred the waste to produce alternative fuel (AF) for use in the company’s cement production.

The Manila Bulletin newspaper has reported that Ecoloop managing director Angela Edralin-Valencia said “Republic Cement remains committed to addressing the pervasive plastic pollution problem in the country by collaborating with various organisations and local government units for proper waste disposal.”

Vietnam: Denmark-based FLSmidth has started a partnership with Tontoton to help cement plants source non-recyclable plastic waste for co-processing. FLSmidth will work as a technical consultant on the project. The partnership was announced at the ADB Healthy Oceans Tech and Finance Forum: Innovative Solutions for Asia and the Pacific. Local cement producers interested in getting involved are welcomed to reach out to Tontoton for information on how to get started.

“With our process knowledge, technical expertise within co-processing, and waste-fuel firing equipment, we proud to help facilitate a win-win situation for all parties involved,” said Carsten Riisberg Lund, Cement Industry President, FLSmidth.

Tontoton is a Vietnam-based plastic neutralisation program that aims to reduce ocean plastic. It builds personalised plans for companies to reduce their plastic footprint, using the same concept as a carbon footprint. It collaborates with local communities to collect a predefined amount of ocean-bound plastic on behalf of companies, equivalent to their overall plastic consumption or a specific product. It works under the international standard of the Ocean Bound Plastic Neutrality Certification, audited by a third party, Control Union.

India: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim’s waste management subsidiary Geocycle has delivered a consignment of 10t of plastic waste from the River Jojari in Rajasthan to its processing plants at local cement plants run by ACC and Ambuja Cement. Geocycle has partnered with Rekart Innovations with the aim of clearing 150t of plastic waste from the river. The partnership will also undertake restoration of riverine habitats.

LafargeHolcim India chief executive officer Neeraj Akhoury said, "We are committed to building a sustainable future by adopting clean and green technologies. Geocycle India has been part of many initiatives and has helped both Ambuja and ACC cement to make use of waste from the different industrial sectors by getting closer to achieve the Net Zero Waste goal. Geocycle's vast co-processing infrastructure guarantees safe and environmentally friendly final treatment of the collected waste."

Italy: Waste management company Entsorga has offered a prototype near infrared technology (NIR) separator to the Saturno research project into manufacturing organic waste and CO₂ into biofuels, bio-fertilisers and biochemicals. The scheme brings together 25 partner organisations, including cement manufacturer Buzzi Unicem. The prototype sorter will be used by Gaia, a waste management company based in the Province of Asti, to sort residual plastics and to remove polyvinyl chloride (PVC) fractions with higher chlorine content. Plastics that cannot be reused will then be passed to cement plants as an alternative fuel.

Thailand: Siam Cement has engaged the US-based Dow to conduct a study of types of waste plastic suitable for sorting. Dow’s chief executive officer (CEO) Jim Fitterling has estimated that locally sourced pre-used plastics can supply a commercial renewable feedstock operation at a rate of 0.2 – 0.3Mt/yr. The Bangkok Post has reported that the scale on which the two companies would seek to expand any operations depend on volumes of available waste. Nikkei has reported that Thailand generates 1.03Mt/yr of plastic, over 3% of which passes into the World’s oceans.

Philippines: Republic Cement has signed a memorandum of agreement with Nestlé Philippines to co-process post-consumer plastic waste. The agreement was signed by chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Kais Marzouki and Corporate Affairs Head Attorney Ernesto Mascenon of Nestlé Philippines, and president Renato Sunico and director Nabil Francis of Republic Cement and Building Materials.

“Nestlé is aiming for plastic neutrality, which is essentially recovering plastics equal to what we produce. Aside from our current collection and recycling initiatives, we believe this effort will help us gather and co-process bigger volumes of post-consumer waste,” said Marzouki.

In April 2018, Nestlé globally announced a commitment that 100% of its packaging will be recyclable or reusable by 2025. The company’s vision is that none of its waste ends up in landfill or as litter. Nestlé has initiated and is driving waste collection efforts with various partners.

Netherlands/UK: N+P Recycling says that it views a Chinese import ban on plastics as an opportunity for its business. As the Dutch company offers a variety of waste derived fuels for various applications it is encouraging companies to split both fractions to get the optimal waste solutions for each individual quality. Lower calorific value (CV) products are better suited to waste incineration plants whilst higher CV products are typically used by cement, lime, steel and power plants.

Lower grade materials, typically within an 8 - 12GJ/t range, are supplied within many of N+P’s long-term supply contracts, to users within the UK and within Europe. There are also a number of possibilities for materials that are in-between the standard refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and solid-recovered fuel (SRF) qualities, or mid-CV range (12 - 16 GJ/t). For higher quality materials, N+P has a number of solutions all focused on the replacement of primary fossil fuels such as coal.

N+P Recycling produces a higher CV waste fuel product called Subcoal. It is currently building a Subcoal plant at Teesside in the UK with a production capacity of up to 0.22Mt/yr. It has started to source and contract non-recyclable waste streams such as materials recovery rejects, industrial residues and plastic residues for unit. It is expected to open in the third quarter of 2018.