Investments at Geocycle UK accelerating decarbonisation efforts

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Geocycle Hurst Farm platform at the Cauldon Cement Plant, Staffordshire. The new waste* platform part of a £13.5M investment was built adjacent to the cement works as part of a wider step-change** to modernise the Cauldon plant, driving decarbonisation and circularity through increasing the use of waste fuels and reducing the amount of fossil fuels.

The combined investment is estimated to save up to 30,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Hurst Farm is operated by Geocycle UK, a subsidiary of Aggregate Industries, which receives, stores and transports Solid Recovered Fuels (SRF) to the Cauldon cement plant.

The majority of the SRF received comes from within a 50 miles radius of the site, reducing transport emissions, whilst ensuring that local waste is suitably recovered in a sustainable manner, avoiding landfilling.

Through our recycling and recovery solutions based on cement kiln co-processing we ensure safe and sustainable recovery of approximately 100,000 tonnes of waste per year into the cement manufacturing process. We therefore help our partners achieve their environmental commitments, whilst providing solutions that are practical, economical, sustainable and to the highest health, safety and environmental standards. To learn more about "co-processing" go to page : https://www.geocycle.com/co-processing.

Our customers are experts in generating consistent SRF which is manufactured to exact specifications to meet all health, safety and environmental requirements, with each partner undergoing strict Geocycle qualification and due diligence in advance of and during supply.

“Having worked very closely with Geocycle to get this project up and running, it has been excellent to see the progress made over the first year. Our proximity to the Cauldon Cement Plant continues to reduce the carbon footprint of the waste derived fuel that is manufactured at our advanced sorting facility in Swadlincote and allows us to continue to divert material from Landfill. We look forward to continuing our successful relationship with the team at Geocycle.” Simon Lowe, Willshee Waste & Recycling

“We are really proud of the Hurst Farm platform at Cauldon, we are offering the best recovery solution for the non recyclable waste while reducing the use of fossil fuels in the production of cement. We expect this facility to become even more important as Aggregate Industries accelerates its decarbonisation activities on its route to Net Zero by 2050” Andrew Whyatt, Geocycle UK

Read more about Geocycle UK customers and services HERE.

* “Waste” The waste permitted to be received at Hurst Farm is SRF or “Solid Recovered Fuel”, a re-processed non-hazardous residue from recycling activities, comprising waste fractions of plastic, fibre, textile, wood and more.

** Process Improvements : As part of the investment a separate chlorine gas bypass was also integrated into the Cauldon cement process, in order to capture the additional chlorine load from the increase in waste derived fuels.