REDMOND, Wash., - Univar Inc. announced that it reached a milestone in sustainability, shipping its 100 millionth gallon of fuel-quality waste for reuse from its waste chemical business, ChemCare, to Systech Environmental Corporation, a North American byproduct co-processing services provider. The achievement is the result of a 25-year partnership in environmental waste management between the two companies.
ChemCare, Univar's waste management and disposal service, ships fuel-quality waste to Systech to fuel kilns in its cement processing plants. Since the partnership began in 1989, the cumulative shipment of 100 million gallons of waste has produced the fuel equivalent of 400,000 tons of coal. By converting otherwise unusable chemical byproduct for fuel in cement kilns, ChemCare and Systech have saved the mining and use of roughly 20,000 truckloads of coal, and produced 1.7 million tons of cement with the fuel-quality waste – enough concrete to pave a two-lane U.S. Interstate 1,880 miles long – roughly the distance from New York City to Denver, Colorado.
"Reducing the environmental impact of our customers' byproducts is an integral part of who we are," said Greg Vas Nunes, vice president of ChemCare. "We are committed to responsible waste management for our ChemCare customers, including the recycling of materials wherever possible. Our 25 year partnership with Systech has been an outstanding reflection of this, enabling the responsible disposal of waste while providing an alternative fuel source for cement kilns."
A subsidiary of cement manufacturer Lafarge, Systech Environmental Corporation primarily reuses waste byproducts by recovering energy or mineral content during the cement manufacturing process. Co-processing allows industries to divert otherwise unusable waste to be used in place of fossil fuels to fire cement kilns in processing plants.
"We are extremely pleased that ChemCare has put its trust in Systech for the responsible reuse of its byproducts," said David Cheney, President, Systech Environmental Corporation. "By co-processing Univar's fuel quality waste in cement manufacturing, we were able to avoid the generation of 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide, approximately the same amount of annual emissions produced by 160,000 cars. This is a remarkable achievement, and we look forward to growing these figures with the help of ChemCare in the coming years."