Displaying items by tag: Government

Italy: Port authorities at the Port of Salerno have blocked a shipment to Tunisia consisting of 600 containers of municipal waste after reporting ‘serious’ concerns with the consignment. The Agency Tunis Afrique Press has reported that the waste was bound for a cement plant to make alternative fuels. The Tunisian National Chamber of Cement Producers is in the process of challenging the move. The import of alternative fuels from Italy had previously been authorised by the Ministry of Local Affairs and Environment, through the National Agency for Environmental Protection.

New Zealand: Golden Bay Cement has commissioned a waste tyre feeding line at its Golden Bay integrated cement plant in Northland. The producer will cut CO₂ emissions by 13,000t/yr by substituting tyres for coal. It will eliminate the 5000t/yr of iron sands used in production and reduce coal use by 15%. The New Zealand government’s Waste Minimisation Fund supplied US$11.2m towards the US$17.5m project.

Government environment minister David Parker told Live News, "This innovative project is a win-win-win for the environment. It reduces a significant waste problem, reuses a valuable resource, and reduces carbon emissions by about 13,000t/yr.” He added that the line, "will divert from landfill or stockpiles about 42% of the estimated 3m waste tyres in Auckland each year. New Zealand needs to address its longstanding problem with waste so we can become the low-waste, low-emissions economy we need to be. "

Spain: The regional government of Extremadura has granted a licence to Cementos Balboa for the use olive pumice and tyres as alternative fuels (AF) at its Alconera cement plant. Agencia EFE has reported that the company has begun work on modifications to the plant’s kiln line in order to enable it to reach a thermal substitution rate of 70%. The project includes building reception, storage, dosage and injection units for the fuels. Once complete the plant aims to process 130,000t/yr of olive pomace, 121,000t/yr of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and 69,000t/yr of tyres. The plant currently uses petcoke.

Poland: The Polish Cement Producers Association (CPA) has warned of the possible effects of planned new environmental regulations on the cement industry’s supply of alternative fuel (AF). New regulations from the Ministry of Climate and Environment could potentially ban the use of some common fractions of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) at cement plants. The association says that this may precipitate a fuel shortage for cement producers for years to come. In 2020, Polish cement plants used 1.6Mt of RDF. The association added that RDF production for cement plants diverts 10% of total municipal waste from landfill.

CPA chair Krzysztof Kieres said, “The cement industry contributes to both saving natural resources and improving the quality of the environment, including by reducing the amount of waste deposited in landfills.”

The association said that the Polish cement industry has invested Euro2.23bn in modernisation since 1990, in large part in kiln line upgrades to reach its current AF substitution rate of 70%. Its AF substitution target is currently 90%.

Canada: The Cement Association of Canada (CAC) has praised the state government of Ontario’s Made-in-Ontario environment plan. The plan prioritises the phasing out of coal in industry.

President and chief executive officer (CEO) Michael Sweeney said, “Our industry has consistently advocated regulatory measures facilitating the transition from fossil fuels to low or zero-carbon fuels from materials otherwise going to landfill as a cornerstone of reducing greenhouse gases from cement manufacturing.” He continued, “Regulatory changes that remove barriers to this transition will, over time, allow the Ontario cement sector to eliminate significant greenhouse gas emissions – 1Mt in the next five years alone – as our cement plants implement new technologies. Equally important, diverting waste products from landfills will dramatically reduce landfill emissions, significantly magnifying the benefit of these measures in the fight against climate change.”

Spain: The Municipal Planning Department of Córdoba (GMU) has repealed Cementos Cosmos’ licence to burn alternative fuels in the cement kiln of its integrated Córdoba plant because it “goes against the provisions of the current General Urban Development Plan”, according to Europa Press. The decision marks a victory for local campaign group Córdoba Aire Limpio, which has been campaigning to stop waste being burned at the cement plant since a previous authorisation was issued in 2007.

Canada: The Capital Regional District (CRD) in British Colombia has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ḱenes Transportation, a Wsáneć First Nations partnership company, to contract the transportation of biomass produced at a sewage treatment unit at Hartland Landfill to Lafarge Canada’s Richmond cement plant. The dehydrated biofuel made from treated wastewater is then coprocessed as an alternative fuel at the integrated cement plant. The agreement will last up to five years while the CRD develops long term plans for the biosolids, according to the Times Colonist newspaper.

US: The legislative body of Albany County, New York, has enacted a law ending the establishment of new waste burning facilities. The Times Union newspaper has named LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge North America’s 2.0Mt/yr Ravena cement plant amongst facilities affected. The legislature came to its decision following public outcry after Lafarge North America announced its plans to renew its licence to burn up to 4.8Mt/yr of tyres in January 2019.

Legislator William Reinhardt said, “While most of the attention had been focused on the potential impacts of the law on facilities like Norlite and LaFarge, the real intended point of the legislation is longer term. We want clean air not only today but for the foreseeable future.”

Indonesia: Solusi Bangun, the Public Works and Housing Ministry, the Environment and Forestry Ministry, the Danish International Development Agency, and the Central Javan and Cilacap administrations have inaugurated an 18,300t/yr-capacity refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant in Cilacap in the province of Central Java. The Jakarta Post has reported that the US$6.29m plant, the first of its kind in Indonesia, will process 120t/day of municipal solid waste into RDF for cement plants.

The Indonesian government is exploring ways to increase the uptake of RDF production as a waste management alternative across the country and is aiming to open 12 waste-fired power plants of a total power of 234MW by 2022.

India: The government of Chhattisgarh has begun purchasing dung from farmers and street cleaners in order to sell as a fuel mix additive to cement producers in the state. The state has established a 500t/day waste processing plant in Raipur District at a cost of US$17m in order to prepare the dung for use in cement plants. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said, “The scheme has multiple objectives, namely income generation and environmental conservation.”