We are FCC - Nº17

Cementos Portland Valderrivas The circular economy at cement The material recycling and energy recovery of waste in the Group’s cement factories in Spain preven- ted 482,316 tons of waste from be- ing buried in landfills in our country. The recycling effort made by the cement industry is a solution that is advancing year after year and is reducing the pollution genera- ted by our country’s landfills. This reality takes on even more value in the Spanish context, where 51% of municipal waste is still sent to lan- dfills, compared to 23% of the Eu - ropean Union (EU) average, and even more so taking into account that in 2035 this percentage may not exceed 10%, as required by EU regulations. The Group avoids 482,316 tons of waste by recycling materials. Between 2014 and 2019, the Group in Spain used a total of 1,616,525 tons of alternative raw materials. By autonomous com- munities, Catalonia, with 450,513 tons; Cantabria, with 257,951 tons; Navarra, with 138,556 tons; Anda- lusia, with 489,968 tons; Castilla y León, with 178,807; and Madrid, with 100,730 tons, have been the most significant data. If we look at the type of raw ma- terial recycled, the most used raw materials were fly ash and fine cal - cite waste. With the support of all the social actors involved, most EU countries promote material and energy re- covery in cement plants. In other countries, the circular model is rewarded and promoted, thus ma- king it possible to reduce, reuse, recycle and, when the waste does not allow the previous alternati- ves, to make energetic use of the resources it contains, as opposed to the obsolete linear model of ex- tract, produce, consume and throw away. Proof of this is the high land- fill costs used to penalize this prac - tice in countries such as Sweden, Germany and Austria, which are double or triple those of Spain. 26 B U S I N E S S B U S I N E S S