Cementing Sustainability in Construction

Sustainability and the construction industry haven’t always gone hand in hand. However, recent years have seen huge leaps forward as the sector has become greener on a large and local scale. David Millar, managing director at CEMCOR Ltd, explains more.

Cement plays one of the most fundamental roles in construction and as an industry, has always been more traditional and conservative than others by nature, but if we want to futureproof our industry and those we supply, then now is the time for serious investment in sustainability and green initiatives.

After acquiring Lafarge Ireland in 2022, we rebranded Cookstown Cement to CEMCOR and made a pledge to put sustainability at the forefront of our future investments. In 2023, we have invested an additional £6 million in multiple industry-leading upgrades which will help us operate in a more environmentally friendly manner, beginning with the replacement of the existing electro-static precipitators (ESPs) with a state-of-the-art bag filter at the plant.

With cement being a key driver of climate change, there is no time to waste in implementing key upgrades to the plant. Within a period of 14 months from final design agreement in March 2022, the new bag filter complete with new 750Kw main process fan was commissioned and fully operational from May 2023. Centred around the abatement filter, this investment project kick-started CEMCOR’s mission to operate more efficiently by detecting, locating and repairing damaged bags with minimal disruption to production operations. For sulphur dioxide abatement and the neutralising of other process gases such as chlorine, we have installed a lime hydrate injection reaction tower, complete with dedicated silo. With landfills continuing to be a huge environmental hazard, we also installed a new dust particulate conveying system at our Cookstown plant. This system will transport the captured dust to an existing silo via a new batch weighing feeder where it will be recycled through the cement manufacturing process, so no material is landfilled or disposed elsewhere.

Although much of the focus of the construction industry’s sustainability efforts are usually centred around carbon emissions, if we adopt a more holistic approach and consider sustainability in every process from start to finish, it will account for better plant longevity. With a well-rounded focus on our plant upgrades, we also conducted research into how the paper packing market of cement bags has been developing in recent years and after undertaking an in-depth review of our own paper packing system at CEMCOR, we have invested in both new hardware and software for the plant.

Over the years, customer trends in the packed cement market have changed with longer shelf life, weather resistant plastic packaging becoming more prevalent. However, recent developments in paper-based packaging have resulted in recyclable, biodegradable paper options now available and hugely popular on the market.

In addition to the high-tech hardware upgrades such as filling frames, spouts and weighers on the packer itself, major improvements to the PLCs on the packer and palletiser systems have been completed. These updates have already provided efficiency benefits through improved reliability and consistency as well as improving the ease of operations through a new touchscreen operating system which has built-in diagnostics and remote support access.

Not settling for complacency, we are also replacing the existing manual pallet wrapping process with automated stretch hood equipment, ensuring the plant is as efficient as possible. Further upgrades, similar to those carried out on the paper packing line, are in the plans for the plastic packing line in the near future. We will also be investing in new laboratory equipment to improve the speed and accuracy of the raw feed analysis, including online monitoring and new handling facilities for alternative raw materials including biogenic carbonates. Such dramatic investments and upgrades cannot only be championed by the executive suite of a business but rather communicated to and bought into by the whole company. Trends show the cement sector is moving towards more sustainable practices and the fact our plant is operating at an extremely high standard and leading the way in this industry, is credit to the forward-thinking team we have at CEMCOR.