Holcim’s waste win

Holcim has been allowed to completely replace conventional fuels with waste when making cement at its production plant in Sehnde-Höver near Hanover, in Germany. The permission granted by the local inspectorate replaces an agreement in 2006 to allow the plant to use 70% substitute fuels. Holcim mainly burns plastic waste at its Sehnde-Höver plant, which produces about 1million tonnes of cement per year.

According to Martin Knops of REpower Systems, the German cement industry has the capacity to recycle all disused wind power rotor blades in Germany. Repower Systems, a leading producer of turbines in the German wind energy sector, claims that from 2020 about 15,000tonnes of rotor blades will have to be disposed of in the country each year. Cement producer Holcim has developed what it claims to be the only legally-secured technology for the sustainable recycling of rotor blades, and this has been in regular