Sustainability of cement kiln co-processing of wastes in India: a pilot study

ABSTRACT

Co-processing in cement kiln achieves effective utilization of the material and energy value present in the wastes, thereby conserving the natural resources by reducing the use of virgin material. In India, a number of multifolded initiatives have been taken that take into account the potential and volume of waste generation. This paper studies the factors which might influence the sustainability of co-processing of waste in cement kilns as a business model, considering the issues and challenges in the supply chain framework in India in view of the four canonical pillars of sustainability. A pilot study on co-processing was carried out in one of the cement plant in India to evaluate the environmental performance, economical performance, operational performance and social performance. The findings will help India and other developing countries to introduce effective supply chain management for co-processing while addressing the issues and challenges during co-processing of different waste streams in the cement kilns.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-processing
• cement kiln
• sustainability
• waste management
• India

Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge the support provided by the UK India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) project, ‘Waste to energy from municipal waste – design of decision support system (DSS)’ at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, India, and Aston University, UK. The authors acknowledge the support of the research project ‘Sustainability of Co-processing of wastes in cement kiln and improvement in technology’ by Geocycle India, and International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW). The author will also like to acknowledge Dr Tapobrata Bhattacharya for his help in improving the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.