The Spanish cement industry has recovered 57Mt of waste from 88 sectors between 2004-19, reports the Fundación CEMA in collaboration with Institut Cerdà. This has prevented the release of 1Mt of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere and savings of EUR115m by not sending the waste to landfills.

The report confirms that the optimisation of synergies has resulted in the cement sector becoming one of the largest recyclers of mineral waste in Spain and a leader in energy recovery. It has injected almost 60Mt of waste into the circular economy – ranging from demolition waste to sugar foam via a wide variety of other wastes, including ash, metal slag, sludge and clay.

In the last year of the reporting period, more than 2Mt of waste were recovered, including 1.4Mt of material recovery from 39 economic sectors. Energy recovery was enabled by waste from 49 economic activities.