The Cimpor cement plant in Loulé, now that laid-off workers have returned and production is back to normal, is going as green as it can by using various eco-fuels in its kilns.
Landfill waste and the delicious sludge produced by sewage treatment plants both are to be introduced, to the conditional approval of environmental association, Almargem.
A statement issued by the association explains that the Loulé da Cimpor Production Center, which opened in 1973, occupies an old agricultural area to the west of the city of Loulé and is clearly visible from the Via do Infante.
As the factory has no near neighbours, sited as it is in the middle of the countryside, the problem of polluted air, water and industrial level noise, its isolation minimised the plant’s impact during its first ten years of operation.
This later changed, with "a serious controversy concerning Cimpor's interest in using animal by-products as fuel, at a time when anything coming from animal carcasses, such as bone-meal, raised concerns of contamination by mad cow disease."
With the exception of bone-meal, Almargem says that as of 2009, Cimpor has been using shredded vehicle tires as a combustion ingredient for its kilns, in order to reduce its use of carbon-rich, oil refinery residue.
After a period of low production, with the eventual sale of the company to InterCement, Cimpor now wants to renew its environmental license, which has expired.
The company wants to incorporate some different materials to its co-incineration product list by incorporating landfill waste and dry sludge from waste treatment plants, as well as waste from the textile industry, from coal-fired power stations and from the plastics industry, all designed to reduce the use of petroleum coke.
Almargem has a proviso and wants Cimpor to clarify "fully" the origin of the new materials that it wants to burn as there is always concern over contamination from improperly treated waste which may contain traces of heavy metals and dioxins, in addition to their impact on airborne pollution rates and the emission of greenhouse gases.
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