Indonesia: The Ministry of Environment and Forestry is working with four cement producers to dispose of medical waste. Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, the Director General of Waste, Hazardous and Toxic Waste (B3) at the Ministry of Environment, said that the project was a short term one that would last six months, according to Netral News. The government department will work with Indocement’s Citeureup plant, Holcim Indonesia’s Narogong plant, Semen Padang and Cemindo Gemilang’s Bayah plant.
Irish Cement wins planning permission for Limerick plant
Ireland: Irish Cement has been granted planning permission by An Bord Pleanala for its plans to burn tyres and tyres and solid recovered waste at its Limerick plant. Local councils originally approved the project in 2017 but this was appealed to the national An Bord Pleanala following local protests. Environmental groups say they will continue to fight the plan.
Minister opens new production line at Arabian Cement Company plant
Egypt: Khaled Fahmy, the Minister of Environment, has opened a new production line at Arabian Cement Company’s Ain Sokhna plant in Suez. The line uses FLSmidth’s Hotdisc combustion device to allow it to use high levels of alternative fuels, according to the Watani newspaper. The opening was attended by Muhammad Shehab Abdel-Wahab, chief executive of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, Nahed Youssef, head of waste management organisation, as well as a number of representatives of the financiers, and director of the European Investment Bank.
In 2015 Arabian Cement Company commissioned another Hotdisc installation. At the time is said it had a designed fuel mix of 70% coal and 30% alternative fuels, using a mixture of agricultural wastes, municipal sludge, and refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
Bulk Handling Systems launches new products for recycling plants
US: Bulk Handlings Systems (BHS) and its subsidiary National Recovery Technologies (NRT) has launched two new products targeted at Material Recovery Facility (MRF) operators for identifying waste products and tracking the entire recycling process. The Max-AI Visual Identification System (VIS) provides real time material identification in recycling plants. The Total Intelligence Platform provides information to track the entire recycling process.
Max-AI VIS helps operators monitor material composition in the sorting process. The system uses multi-layered neural networks and a vision system to see and identify objects. It can be used to verify the quality of end products, or to monitor the quantity of recyclables in a MRF’s residue as it leaves a system. An operator can compare composition for a specified time period against key performance indicators.
The Total Intelligence Platform monitors and tracks throughput, uptime, downtime events, material composition, motor amperage, and performance data from optical sorters and Max-AI-powered equipment.
“While perhaps not as sexy as robotic sorting, the idea that we can now see and track input composition, residue composition and product quality automatically is something that our customers are really excited about,” said BHS chief executive officer Steve Miller.