The commitment to Sustainability of the Catalan cement industry has made it possible to continue reducing the consumption of natural raw materials in the manufacture of clinker and cement. According to the latest data published by the Circular Economy Observatory, corresponding to the year 2021, Catalan factories used 6 million tons of resources from quarries, compared to 6.26 million tons in 2020 (-4.2%) and 7.17 million in 2019 (-16.3%).
These reductions, and the consequent safeguarding of natural resources, have been achieved thanks to the use of waste from, among other things, the demolition of buildings, industrial iron sludge and other slag. Thus, in 2021 more than 234 thousand tons of these alternative raw materials were used, compared to the 162 thousand used in 2019 or the 142 thousand used in 2020. The last year-on-year increase is very substantial: 65%.
Regarding the energy use of waste, in 2021 the trend of the last decade of substitution of traditional fossil fuels has been consolidated. The consumption of this type of energy was 241,000 tons in the Catalan factories as a whole, while 280,000 tons of alternative fuels such as CDR (residue-derived fuels), animal meal, wood or vegetable biomass were used.
Even in this practice of circular economy, Catalonia has consolidated in recent years a constant reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels. Thus, in the period 2018 to 2021, and progressively year after year, the volume of use of this energy has decreased by 27%.
All these data, and other complementary and more detailed data, can be consulted at the Circular Economy Observatory, an initiative of the Cement Labor and Environment Foundation (CEMA Foundation) in collaboration with the Cerdà Institute, in which it also cooperates Ciment Català.