MIRECO: Europe's first recycling platform fights industrial greenhouse gases

Recycling is therefore a real booster in saving CO₂. This is exactly where MIRECO comes in: "By increasing the use of recycled material, bricks or mixes throughout the refractory industry, we massively curb CO₂ consumption in our industry, but also that of our customers - including global steel, cement and glass manufacturers," explains Sabrina Salmen, Chairwoman of the Board of MIRECO and Senior Executive VP Recycling at RHI Magnesita.

"However, it is not enough if only we, as the largest player in the refractories industry, push recycling. We will only achieve major CO₂ savings if all refractory manufacturers include recycled raw materials in their portfolio as standard," Sabrina Salmen is convinced. "And they will only do that if they get the highest quality and a service that facilitates the use of recycled material. MIRECO is therefore a platform for the entire refractories ecosystem to fight greenhouse gases by means of a circular economy."

Circular economy: relief for the environment with Cero Waste

At the heart of MIRECO is the CERO (Continous Economic Recycling Optimisation) Waste concept, a customised concept that uses circular economy to enable the use of high-quality recycled raw materials and prevent expensive and environmentally harmful landfill as far as possible. Nenad Tanasic, CEO of MIRECO and Managing Director of Horn & Co. Group: "We offer our customers to produce a high-quality raw material from their supposed waste product - the used refractory brick - which in turn is an important building block for other players in the industry. MIRECO achieves this by offering everything from waste management to recycling, production and sales of refractory bricks - all from a single source."

MIRECO also benefits from the extensive research and development activities of RHI Magnesita, which primarily invests in the further development of recycling. MIRECO has set itself the goal of processing more than 160 000 t of material already in its first year of existence, which means a CO₂ saving of more than 300 000 t - as much as more than 17 million mature trees would have to compensate annually.

For this purpose, there are 7 recycling plants throughout Europe (Germany, Austria, Sweden and Poland) with a total of 150 employees. MIRECO already serves over 100 customers in all European countries. In the future, MIRECO's recycling business will be expanded to other countries too.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/06122022/mireco-europes-first-recycling-platform-fights-industrial-greenhouse-gases/