CEMEX extends VeryNile plastic waste initiative

The CEMEX and VeryNile initiative have expanded the scope of the partnership to reach the CEMEX Egypt's hometown of Assiut. This comes after the success achieved by their partnership in cleaning the Nile River from plastic waste in Cairo and Giza governorates.

The expansion process included contracting a group from the local fishing community from Assiut who collected four loaded trucks of plastic waste from the Nile during their first month. Following the waste hierarchy, CEMEX will use the non-recyclable, non-hazardous fraction of the waste collected as alternative fuel in its kilns in efforts to reach zero waste to landfills.

The initiative and its expansion come as part of CEMEX efforts to support circular economy as part of its global business for providing circularity solutions, "Regenera" – including the receiving, managing, recycling and recovering of waste. Regenera supports the ambition to use more non-recyclable waste and industrial by-products as a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and natural raw materials.

CEMEX and VeryNile signed a cooperation protocol in June of last year, to expand the scope of the initiative’s operations in collecting waste from the Nile and support the fishing community of Qursaya Island. Since then, CEMEX has received around 40t of waste collected from the Nile that was used as alternative fuel as part of the company's actions to support circular economy.

“At CEMEX, we work on building a more sustainable future in line with our climate-action programme “Future in Action”. Since we started working with VeryNile, we wanted to expand the initiative to Assiut, and we are delighted to see the initiative taking off in our second year of cooperation”, commented Carlos Gonzalez, CEMEX Egypt and UAE president.

The CEMEX and VeryNile initiative has been expanded to include recovery of plastic waste from Assiut