One of the CDRA’s core values is stewardship and advancement. Behind the scenes, your CDRA staff and Board work diligently in support of this, not only for our members, but for our industry. Over the past year we have been working with the EPA in an area they call “Smart Sectors.” The EPA Smart Sectors initiative aims to enhance environmental performance across various industries. It focuses on collaboration between the EPA and specific sectors to promote sustainability, including providing resources and tools to help sectors reduce their environmental impact. Through this initiative with the EPA, CDRA staff worked directly with the American Cement Association (ACA) to find the best way to educate the cement industry on the use of biofuels in their kilns.
The creation of biofuel is not new to the recycling industry, nor the cement industry, however, in the U.S. only about 16% of cement kilns use biofuels as an energy source. Many of our meetings and conversations circled around why this number was so low and how we could work together to increase it. The answers circled around the following:
- Low confidence in product quality from recycled materials.
- Cost to incorporate the change in their operation.
- Uncertainty around consistent material volume.
Our first step is to educate. We did this on March 19th when the EPA hosted a Forum on using C&D Wood as Fuel in the Cement Industry. The CDRA put together a panel of recyclers from our association to provide real-world examples of the work being done in biofuels. The Forum also featured CDRA member Heidelburg Materials who presented one of their facilities in Canada who is operating on biofuel. Heidelburg’s presentation gave a much greater understanding of the financial investment required by the cement kilns to make the commitment to only using biofuels.
The CDRA’s expert panel consisted of David Zwicky from Zwicky Recycling, one of the largest biofuel manufacturers in the country; Randy Wolf, COO of the Recycling Certification Institute, but formerly 20+ years of experience in the manufacturing of biofuels; Johannes Kohn, VP of Operations with WIN Waste Innovations who is in charge of their biofuel manufacturing and works to drive their Waste to Energy programs; Allen Burns, Owner of Burns Services, who is a recycler looking to expand into the manufacturing of biofuels; and CDRA President, John Thomas from WR Solutions who lent his years of experience in biofuels to round out this panel of experts.
David Zwicky, Johannes Kohn, and Allen Burns walked attendees through their individual facility processes including how material comes in, how it is sorted and how recyclers manufacture quality marketable end products. The goal was to allow cement kiln operators to see that recyclers view biofuels as a manufactured product and understand that quality standards must be met to retain the confidence of whoever is purchasing their product. The conversation also included how recyclers work directly with cement kilns to make a biofuel specific to their kiln and to their needs. Regarding the concern around consistent volumes of materials, our panel was able to describe their operations and inventory volumes so that cement kiln operators could start to feel comfortable that there is ample material volume throughout most of the country year round to support a closer look at incorporating biofuels into their kiln operations.
Our next step is to work on ways to keep conversations open. If you are a recycler interested in expanding your operation to include the manufacturing of biofuels, please reach out to me at ajohnson@cdrecycling.org and I will work to connect you with a kiln in your geographic area.