Switzerland: LafargeHolcim’s global waste management business, Geocycle, treated 10Mt of waste in 2017, an increase of 13% year-on-year from 2016. It co-processed all types of waste in cement kilns including solid shredded waste from industrial and municipal origin, spent solvents, used tires, waste oils, contaminated soils, industrial and sewage sludges, as well as demolition waste.

“At LafargeHolcim we offer solutions which facilitate the simultaneous recycling and recovery of waste. We have ambitious plans to continue investing in all parts of the world in order to bring the most advanced technology and solutions to our partners and play a role in solving the global waste problem,” said Jan Jenisch, the chief executive officer of LafargeHolcim.

In Europe and North America, the main growth area for LafargeHolcim’s global waste management business was industrial waste, while in Africa more biomass waste such as rice and coffee husks were treated. The strongest growth rates for municipal solid waste (MSW) were seen in Asia and Latin America, where waste infrastructures are still developing and municipalities continue to seek more sustainable solutions for the growing volume of household waste.

In 2017 LafargeHolcim built three new major waste treatment facilities: Kujawy in Poland, El Sokhna in Egypt and Oum Azza in Morocco. It said that Oum Azza is the first waste pre-processing platform for MSW in the Middle East and Africa.

Indonesia: The Danish government has invested US$3.63m to support a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant project in the Cilacap regency of Central Java. Ahead of construction delegates from the Danish Embassy in Jakarta, the Cilacap Environment Agency, Holcim Indonesia and other non-government agencies visited the proposed site, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper. The US$5.6m plant started construction in mid-2017 and is expected to start operation by October 2018. Holcim Indonesia will use RDF from the plant at its cement plant at Cilacap to substitute 5% of its daily coal use.

Canada: A Nova Scotia judge has dismissed a residents' group's bid for a judicial review of the province's decision to allow the Lafarge Brookfield cement plant to burn tyres as fuel in its kiln. Justice James Chipman of the provincial Supreme Court said the environment minister's approval of a project at the plant was reasonable, according to the Canadian Press newspaper.

Lafarge plans to burn up to 5200t/yr of tyres. Once the cement producer has obtained an industrial approval for the one-year pilot project to co-process tyres the province’s waste diversion agency is expected to supply it with around 280,000t/yr of tyres. The scheme has received criticism locally because Nova Scotia residents pay an environmental handling fee when they buy new tyres, promoting commentators to suggest that this revenue would be subsidising a large company.

Bulgaria: Holcim Bulgaria’s Bell Ivor cement plant will increase its co-processing rate of municipal solid waste to 100,000t/yr in 2018. The plant has purchased new equipment to increase its waste processing capacity and enable it to co-process bigger municipal solid waste volumes. Geocycle Bulgaria, a waste management subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, and the cement plant source waste from a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant near Sofia.