A waste to value partnership invitation by Vedanta was quite interesting and shows how inter-sectoral collaborations could be a key driver for the country's decarbonization efforts.
The proposed partnership with cement producers is for using Vedanta's by-products for manufacturing low-carbon cement. The company expressed its interest in long-term collaboration with cement industry players on opportunities of using fly ash (a by-product in thermal power generation) and bauxite residue (a by-product of producing alumina from bauxite) in cement manufacturing.
The company has already been undertaking this activity. It has supplied over 3 lakh metric tonnes of fly ash to various cement plants in India, and since February ‘21, it has supplied over 30,000 metric tonnes of bauxite residue to cement manufacturers.
In addition, it has been supplying fly ash free of cost to hundreds of local bricks making MSMEs in its local regions. Ash bricks are not only lighter and stronger than traditional clay bricks but play a crucial role in preserving nutrient-rich topsoil from being used as the raw material, resulting in estimated savings of about 2 tons of topsoil for every tonne of ash brick manufacturing. Besides, ash brick manufacturing is an eco-efficient process, contrary to the energy-intensive process of producing clay bricks in brick kilns that result in substantial greenhouse gas emissions - every tonne of ash brick manufactured could avoid about 6 T of CO2 equivalent emissions, according to estimates.
Is all these sound really impactful, don't they?
