Waste Management Through Cement Production

With population and pollution growing every year, there is an urgent need to revamp the waste
management processes being used. Landfills are now overflowing, and the incineration process
consumes excessive energy while increasing carbon emission. The cement industry leaders
have now come up with an idea of utilizing waste to fuel kilns used in cement production.

Sustainability

The term is used to express the need of sustaining ourselves without hampering the chances of
future generations to meet their needs.

Under the cement sustainability initiative the leading organizations in the cement industry work
towards lowering the carbon emissions and consumption of non-renewable resources.

Coal Consumption: Overview

The supply of coal to the cement industry dropped to a mere 35% in 2013, from a whopping 75%
in 2003. Currently, the cement industry gets only 5% coal from the production in the country,
while the rest of its depends are fulfilled through imports.

We imported an excess of 3.6 million tonnes of coal in the first 10 months of 2018 in comparison
to the imports during the same period in 2017. The cement industry makes use of grade G4, G5
, G6, G7, G8 and G9 coal out of which the majority consumption is of non-coking bituminous
coal along with lignite in small quantities.

Being the primary requirement of the industry, its growing use and environmental impact have
always been an area of concern. The industry has started using environmental practices and
Best Available Technologies (BAT) to reduce its carbon footprint. The CO2 emissions from a
conventional pulverised coal combustion plant can drop by 2-3% if one can get a one percentage
point improvement in its efficiency.

Alternatives to Coal

The TSR or Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) indicates the percentage of sustainable alternative
fuels that is used to replace the used of fossil or non-renewable fuels.

The Indian cement industry is currently working on the model of a circular economy. Being the
second-largest cement producer in the world, the Indian cement industry aims to effectively use
various kinds of waste as an energy source. It can include fly ash, steel industry slag, and even
municipal solid waste (MSW).

The increasing demand profile of the industry and expected production of 550-600 million tonnes
per annum (mtpa) by 2025 makes the cement industry a prominent candidate for participation in
waste management. The estimated production will require over 51 million tonnes of coal, which
is a humongous task considering the shortage of the resource.

With the growth in urban population and the implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission directive
to use artificial fuel and raw materials, the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is an area of opportunity.

The cement waste disposal program and the use of RDF can help our economy with the saving
of over a billion rupees in coal imports.

The TSR has moved from less than 1% a couple of years ago to 4% at present. Our cement
industry is now working to increase the TSR to 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030.