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.

UAE: Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has increased the amount of by-products it recycled in 2017 by nearly 25% to 96,000t from 77,000t in 2016. EGA’s smelting operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai produce several by-product streams, particularly for use by the cement industry.

Spent pot lining (SPL), the used inner lining of the pots in which aluminium is smelted, is a source of fuel and refractory materials for the cement industry. EGA says it supplied almost twice as much SPL to UAE cement plants in 2017 than it produced. The aluminium producer also produces carbon dust that can be used as a fuel by cement plants. EGA recycled most of the carbon dust from its Jebel Ali smelter in 2017 and is seeking similar solutions for carbon dust from its Al Taweelah smelter.