Ahead of the UN climate summit in New York, LafargeHolcim – parent of Aggregate Industries – has announced that it is spending CHF160 million (£130m) – spread over three years – 'to reduce its carbon footprint in Europe'.
LafargeHolcim is the world’s largest cement company. Based on the company's 2018 accounts, such a sum represents just 0.5% of one year's sales, 6.7% of one year's pre tax profits.
One measure proposed by LafargeHolcim in these grand plans, is to increase the amount of 'repurposing' – or to you and me, burning – of plastic waste, to fire the company's cement kilns. LafargeHolcim claims it can save 3 million tons of CO2 in doing so:
The objective is to reduce annual CO2 emissions in Europe by a further 15 percent like-for-like, representing 3 million tons, by 2022. This will be achieved with an investment of CHF 160 million into advanced equipment as well as technologies to increase the use of low-carbon fuels and recycled materials in the company’s processes and products.
Today we announce our plans to invest CHF 160m in our European plants to use more low-carbon fuels and recycled materials. This will reduce our carbon footprint substantially.— LafargeHolcim (@LafargeHolcim) September 18, 2019
👉 https://t.co/wOLkU6cOgx#Pressrelease #lafargeholcimsustainability #LHLowCarbonTransition pic.twitter.com/HaFG7vKppu
As with all these announcements, some context is useful to decide whether "3 million tons by 2022" would indeed "reduce our carbon footprint substantially". LafargeHolcim – named 'second worst company for increasing CO2 emissions', and acting in a way that would "wipe out most life on the planet" – emitted some 121 million tonnes* of CO2 in 2018, more than the majority of countries in this list. This was 3 million tonnes more than the year before – an increase, in fact, more than the amount it now proposes to save.
LafargeHolcim is keen to talk about 'repurposing', less keen to talk about incinerating:
One of the key levers to improve carbon-efficiency is to integrate the principle of circular economy into the cement production process by using waste materials instead of fossil fuels and primary raw materials. In 2018, LafargeHolcim repurposed 11 million tons of waste materials including 2 million tons of non-recyclable plastics that would otherwise end up in e.g. landfills creating further CO2 emissions. By stepping up its efforts in Europe the company aims at repurposing an additional 1.5 million tons of waste which would lead to avoiding 1 million tons of CO2 per year.
Many question the merits of burning plastic, or whether – for the sake of the climate emergency and CO2 emissions – we should be burying non-recyclable plastic waste instead. Plastics are extremely stable. Despite LafargeHolcim's claims, about plastics in landfills "creating further CO2 emissions":
In general, incineration of plastics produces much greater amounts of CO2 than landfill.
The BBC article Should we burn or bury waste plastic? argues "there's a strong case against incinerating plastics":
They don't break down in landfill, so don't emit greenhouse gases.
Dominic Hogg from Eunomia told BBC News: "When coal is phased out for generating electricity, incineration of unrecycled waste will be the most CO2-intensive form of generation.
"This doesn't make sense if the government's trying to reduce CO2 emissions - unless the government takes drastic action to reduce the amount of plastic in unrecycled waste."
The environment minister Therese Coffey told the Commons: "In environmental terms, it is generally better to bury plastic than to burn it."
In fact, whilst the world continues to produce mountains of plastic waste – and until we can "reduce, reuse, and recycle" – some think "that burying waste plastic in landfill is actually a cheap form of carbon capture and storage":
Governments have been promising for decades to develop plants that will capture the carbon emissions from power stations and force them into underground rocks.
Burying plastic would have the same effect of locking up unwanted carbon at a fraction of the cost.
Elena Polisano, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace UK reluctantly agrees. She told BBC News: "We should reduce, reuse, and recycle, in that order.
"When we get to the stage of deciding whether to burn or bury waste, we have already failed, failed some more and then failed again.
"However, it is safer to contain that failure than to spread it through the atmosphere in the form of toxic gases."
So, plastic waste: "a cheap form of carbon capture and storage" or incinerated and spread "through the atmosphere in the form of toxic gases"?
Welcome to LafargeHolcim's idea of climate action.
* Net CEM CO2 emissions. Total gross direct CO2 emissions 135Mt. Total indirect CO2 emissions 30Mt. Source: LafargeHolcim Sustainability Report 2018
