T&T: Wasted energy

Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) has come up with a project which would see hundreds of tonnes of waste material incinerated in the company's kilns, instead of being dumped at landfill sites, or in rivers and other waterways.

Hannah Wei-Mudden, TCL's Group Environmental Engineer, yesterday outlined details of the proposed project-"Wastes to Energy: Sustainable Waste Management using Cement Kilns" at a luncheon hosted by the Couva/Pt Lisas Chamber of Commerce.
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Wei-Mudden said the TCL plan involved selected wastes such as used tyres, PET plastics ( used to make soft-drink bottles) and petroleum based used-waste oils, be collected at various centres throughout the country, transported to locations where they could be specially prepared (such as where tyres could be shredded) and then taken to TCL where they would be burnt at temperatures averaging 1500 degrees centigrade.

"These materials contain significant calorific value which we are literally dumping down the drains," she said.