Indonesia's Semen Padang is developing the use of waste materials to replace coal, according to Abusyamsari, a member of the company’s innovation team.

The state-owned cement producer and a subsidiary of Semen Gresik, has been using rubber waste since 2011.

“In addition to helping the government in reducing waste, the use of waste rubber can also save production costs,” he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the 2011 Semen Gresik Group Award on Innovation.

“With an assumption that we use 100t of waste from rubber producers, we can reduce production costs by up to IDR1.7bn (US$185,412) per year.”

Semen Gresik president director, Dwi Sutjipto, said the company would continue to develop new innovations including and noted that in addition to waste rubber, the cement maker was also developing alternative fuels using sawdust.