Video from pilot demonstration in Thailand:
Pilot demonstrations conducted and planned as of August 2022:
- Zigui, China (conducted): small town on the bank of the Yangtze river. The aim of the pilot demonstration was to investigate and showcase the benefits of collecting waste and floating material from the Yangtze river and use it as fuel in a local cement plant. Conducted together with Huaxin Cement in Zigui.
- India (on-going): SINTEF has agreed with a leading Indian cement company to conduct a pilot demonstration trial in its cement plant in Central India with non-recyclable plastic wastes (NRPW) mined from a large legacy dumpsite. A successful trial will showcase benefits of co-processing of large volume of NRPW, solving imminent issues of marine litter and CO2 emissions without impacting the cement process, product quality and emissions, especially dioxins and furans. India has 3159 dumpsites occupying more than 6000 ha of prime land and stocking more than 160 million tonnes of wastes. Government of India has plans to remediate all the dumpsites under ‘Lakshya Zero Dumpsite’ programme and has already identified projects worth more than 0.5 billion USD. Globally, dumpsites are by far the biggest source of plastic wastes- estimated at 5 billion tonnes, which will gradually degrade and eventually released as microplastics to oceans.
- Myanmar: currently no co-processing in the cement industry, OPTOCE aims to raise awareness and build capacity, and conducting a possible pilot demonstration. Activities currently on hold due to the military coup in 2021.
- Bangkok, Thailand (conducted): most plastic waste ends up in dumpsites and landfills. Dumpsite redemption and landfill mining are efficient ways to produce refuse derived fuel to substitute coal in cement production and reduce leakage of plastic waste from dumpsites to environment, rivers and oceans. The objective in Thailand is to demonstrate and evaluate this practice.
- Can Tho, Vietnam (conducted): the pilot demonstration investigated how NRPW from the paper recycling industry can be used in co-processing (factory located by the Mekong river). An estimated 110 000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated from Vietnam’s paper industry yearly – currently dumped and non-recyclable. The pilot was conducted in INSEE Hon Chong.