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Cement Manufacturers Association and Government of India commit to collaborate on waste management

Published by , Editorial Assistant
World Cement,


Speaking at the Cement Manufacturers Association’s conference on alternative fuel and raw materials (AFR) 2019, Shri Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, thanked the cement industry for supporting the Swacchata hi Sewa mission in October 2019 in its second phase, which helped dispose of plastic waste in the cement plants within a 200 km radius.

He confirmed that, subsequent to this initiative, the government was willing to discuss with the cement industry how to best manage the process of plastic and waste disposal.

The conference saw members of the cement industry and stakeholders, including senior government officials and technocrats, come together to discuss the role of the cement industry in contributing to India’s energy efficiencies. The event was seen as a platform to cultivate a collaborative action plan for India’s journey towards sustainable goals, banking on the industry’s track record of adopting and creating sustainable benchmarks.

The second day of the conference began with a session on waste management to AFR. Some of the critical points to come up during the discussion concerned segregation, supply, quality, consistency, and the logistics of waste in India.

V. K. Jindal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, stated the importance of waste segregation, without which none of the waste management goals are possible. He noted the increasing initiatives of the government, the takeaway being that over the last five years the government managed to separate up to 57% of the waste that had been collected. This in itself was considered a big achievement on account of a rising awareness and sense of responsibility that has been noted among societal stakeholders. Jindal also mentioned some examples of waste segregation and management in the cities of Indore and Vellore.

S. Sivasubramanian, Municipal Commissioner of Vellore Municipal Corp., emphasised the importance of household waste segregation and the need for community engagement. He further illustrated the success of the Vellore model, citing how the city has become dustbin free.

Deepak Khetrapal, Managing Director and CEO of Orient Cement Ltd, said that the quality and consistency of the waste available to cement industries is very important for effective waste disposal. Standardisation would help the industry to benchmark and calibrate its production perameters. The panelists also voiced the need for updated standardisation norms, which would enable them to use raw materials such as flyash and slag in larger quantities, to create cement with a smaller carbon footprint.

This session was followed by a panel on Game Changers, where some disruptive innovations for waste utilisation and disposal were discussed. Saurabh Jain, Director and Co-Founder of TrashCon, showcased his solution to waste segregation by introducing the TrashBot, which could help the industry to process wastes more efficiently and access refuse-derived fuel with a higher calorific value.

In a closing speech, Mahendra Singhi, President of the Cement Manufacturers Association and Managing Director and CEO of Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd, emphasised that resource conservation and waste utilisation were not only a responsible thing to do, but also the profitable way forward for the cement industry. He signed off by stating that while cement may look grey in colour, the industry has ensured it is green on the inside.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/indian-subcontinent/04102019/cement-manufacturers-association-and-government-of-india-commit-to-collaborate-on-waste-management/

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This article has been tagged under the following:

India cement news Cement news 2018