Displaying items by tag: circular economy

UK: Germany-based Heidelberg Materials has signed a deal for the acquisition of Mick George Group, the leading concrete recycling company in the East Midlands and East of England. Mick George Group’s 40 sites span bulk excavation, earthmoving and demolition services and demolition waste removal and management, as well as ready-mix concrete and aggregates distribution.

Heidelberg Materials Western and Southern Europe director Jon Morrish said “With the acquisition of Mick George, we are clearly moving towards establishing a truly circular materials and services offer in our UK business. I warmly welcome all 1000 Mick George employees to Heidelberg Materials and look forward to further developing the business together.”

Heidelberg Materials aims to offer circular alternatives for half of its products by 2050.

Colombia: Cemex has announced the launch of the Tunjuelo Circularity Centre at its former Tunjuelo quarry near Bogotá. Having rebuilt parts of the 50m-deep quarry with demolition waste, Cemex will now work on its ecological restoration, while continuing to receive excavation waste for reconstruction of the ground. It will meanwhile divert demolition waste deliveries for recycling in aggregate production. In Bogotá, Cemex has launched an initiative for urban construction partnerships in collaboration with local authorities. It will also collect municipal solid waste (MSW) there for use in its cement production and collect its used plastic cement bags for recycling in building materials production.

Cemex’s Colombia and Peru president Alejandro Ramírez said "This is a pioneering model for Cemex in the construction materials industry globally, which we aim to position as a benchmark for circularity within the sustainable development of large cities in Colombia and the world. A piece of land that supplied materials for Bogotá's development for decades has received construction and demolition waste for its redevelopment and was transformed into a green area to the south of the city, an epicenter of the circular economy and an opportunity for urban development for the capital city of Colombia."

US: CR Minerals has signed a contract with mining company Rio Tinto for the supply of mineral waste from the latter's subsidiary US Borax's boron mining operations in California. CR Minerals will use the waste to produce pozzolans to replace cement in local concrete production.

CR Minerals president Jeffrey Whidden said "We have been working with Rio Tinto for several years now to bring this concept to life. Taking what was once considered waste streams and turning them into usable products for the construction materials industry is part of the vision of our company."

UK: Holcim has acquired recycled concrete and aggregates producer Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials. Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials' material recovery system enables it to process 150,000t/yr of construction and demolition waste for recycling. It operates multiple plants across Wiltshire, Berkshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and generated Euro20.6m in sales in 2021.

Switzerland-based Holcim said that the acquisition will expand its UK subsidiary Aggregate Industries' position in the area between London and the West of England, and help the group to achieve its goal of 10Mt/yr-worth of construction and demolition waste recycled globally by 2025.

Canada: Holcim has announced its acquisition of Mathers Group’s quarry and asphalt assets in Quebec. The group says that the acquisition will accelerate its development of local circular construction practices by expanding its recycled concrete offering.

Vietnam: Trung Hieu Development Corporation has secured a five-year contract to use Betolar’s alkali-activated slag and fly ash-based concrete additive Geoprime. Trung Hieu Development Corporation plans to source the materials for Geoprime from local industrial side streams. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that the move will eliminate 80% of raw materials CO₂ emissions across its 120,000t/yr-worth precast concrete production capacity.

Betolar's Head of Asia Juha Pinomaa said "Vietnam is the world's third largest cement producer and fourth largest cement consumer, with 85Mt/yr. We estimate that the Vietnamese market represents significant commercial potential for us in the coming years due to the huge potential for cement replacement.” He concluded “We can promote the local circular economy and accelerate Vietnam's sustainable development efforts by directly offering cement-free alternatives. The Vietnamese steel and energy industry generates large amounts of steel slag and fly ash as side streams, which can be used for Geoprime-based concrete."

Germany: HeidelbergCement has joined EPEA’s Heidelberg Circular City Building Material Registry pilot project. The initiative uses EMEA’s Urban Mining Screening digital registry, which is able to estimate the composition of buildings based on building data. HeidelbergCement says that it will enable it to source construction and demolition waste for circular economic use in building materials production. This will support its ReConcrete 360° recycled concrete CO₂ reincorporation project, among other projects. The initiative will turn Heidelberg into Europe’s first Circular City.

“Full circular economy and sustainable construction are central elements of our climate strategy,” said HeidelbergCement chair Dominik von Achten. “We are focusing on the life cycle assessment of our product concrete, including the processing of demolished concrete, and returning it to the construction cycle. By 2030, we want to offer circular alternatives for half of our concrete products.” Von Achten concluded “Together with the city of Heidelberg, also a pioneer in the area of climate protection, we want to use the Circular City project to demonstrate the enormous potential of concrete recycling for future urban construction.”

Finland: Betolar has patented a method for producing binder from the by-products of metal extraction. The method uses metallic effluent, sludge and dregs generated by the bioleaching of ores.

Chief innovation officer Juha Leppänen said “The ability to produce new solutions for the utilisation of sidestreams is essential to the functioning of our ecosystem. Betolar has a rapidly growing patent portfolio considering its age. We have already obtained approved patents for five inventions of ours.” He added “Waste materials, such as gypsum sludge, can also be used in other construction applications which will be of great value to Betolar's business in the future.”

Spain: Cemex España has supplied concrete from its Vertua Plus range for the construction of an 81-home housing development in Madrid. The estate, called Torrejón Park, will be Spain’s first to be built entirely from Vertua reduced-CO₂ cement. Cemex España says that the products used offer 50 – 70% lower CO2¬ emissions than ordinary concrete. Developer Neinor Homes will additionally recover over 80% of construction waste for recycling.

Finland: Betolar has signed a letter of intent with Australia-based RISAB and the Vanadium Recovery Project to research the use of steel slag from which vanadium has been extracted in concrete production. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that the company says that, through it Geoprime alkali-activated additive technology, the new slag source could replace 10% of the cement used in concrete production in Finland.

CEO Matti Löppönen said "We see a huge opportunity for Betolar here. If successful, we would be able to offer our customers a specific, currently unused slag of the steel industry to replace cement in concrete. Our customers already have experience in utilising other types of slag in the production of concrete using Geoprime. Utilising new side streams will expand the reach of our solution as planned.”

Betolar launched Geoprime in September 2021. It is currently developing a recipe-optimising artificial intelligence (AI) and data platform to bring together concrete producers and suppliers of slag, ash and other materials.