Displaying items by tag: Titan America

US: Titan America's Pennsuco plant, which includes cement manufacturing, aggregates, quarrying, block manufacturing and ready-mix concrete operations, has been officially recognised as a Gold Level Zero Waste facility, making it the only facility of its kind in the US to achieve Zero Waste Status.

"The Zero Waste Certification is a remarkable accomplishment and consistent with Titan America's commitment to striving for best-in-class sustainability practices. Congratulations to our Environmental Department and thanks to everyone at Pennsuco for their help and support. We should all feel very proud of this," said Randy Dunlap, president of Titan America's Florida business.

To qualify for Zero Waste Certification, the Pennsuco Complex was required to demonstrate greater than 90% diversion from landfill use for a minimum of 12 consecutive months. This includes reducing, reusing, recycling or composting discarded materials or recovering the materials for productive use in nature of the economy at biological temperatures and pressures. It requires implementing sustainable strategies for resource and waste management. The process for certification process also included an extensive on-site audit, which was performed by Zero Waste Council members.

Zero Waste recertification occurs every three years. The Pennsuco site is now aiming for Platinum Certification. Titan's Pennsuco Plant has also been recognised for other sustainability initiatives, including Wildlife Habitat Certification and EnergyStar Certification. Titan's two cement plants at Pennsuco and Roanoke have been EnergyStar certified for 10 consecutive years.

USA: Titan America's Roanoke Cement has earned the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Energy Star certification for the tenth consecutive year and Titan's Pennsuco plant celebrates nine years of certification. To qualify for Energy Star, Titan's plants must perform in the top 25 percent of cement plants in the US for total energy efficiency (thermal and electrical) and meet strict environmental performance levels set by the EPA.

To further its efforts, Titan America has implemented a series of processes that enable Titan employees to maintain and improve energy performance across the entire enterprise. The Titan Energy Management System (EnMS), operating at Titan's three largest facilities (the Roanoke Cement plant in Virginia and both the cement plant and aggregate plant located in Medley, Florida) enables employees to systematically manage total consumption of all energy sources. This program, which addresses the energy performance standard ISO 50001, also ensures that the company's business operations are as efficient as possible, increases plant reliability and supports Titan's operational goals.

"At Titan America we are passionate about continuously developing efficient, sustainable operating practices," said Bill Zarkalis, Titan America's CEO. "Titan's EnMS program is an excellent example of innovation and of our commitment to make our business operations more efficient, while contributing as much as we can to make the locations in which we operate better places to live and work. We are very proud of this recognition, but we do not take it for granted. We are poised to continue our efforts."

"We are extremely proud of the Energy Star certifications we have earned over the past decade," commented George Pantazopoulos, Senior Vice President of Titan America Cement Operations and Corporate Engineering. "We also consider this milestone to be a catalyst for reinvigorating our teams and increasing our efforts. We have no doubt that we can gain further efficiencies in our manufacturing processes using the EnMS program."

Roanoke Cement has applied electricity management best practices during the previous 18 months and has delivered an 11% reduction in electricity consumed per tonne of cement produced. Additionally, the company has partnered with electrical utilities to reduce their contribution to peaks on the power grid due to demand management and demand response. These efforts ensure that inefficient peak generators owned by the utilities can remain offline during times when homeowners and businesses place a large demand on the electrical grid.

"The EnMS program is scheduled to be fully operational by 3Q 2017," reported Chris Bayne, Titan America's Corporate Energy Manager and director of the EnMS program. "We organised teams to oversee the program at our three main facilities. Roberto Duran will lead the Pennsuco Aggregates Plant team, Sonny Cruz will lead the Roanoke Cement Plant team and Diwakar Mishra will lead the team at Pennsuco Cement." Bayne also noted that the implementation teams would routinely incorporate energy management practices into the daily operations of Titan's manufacturing facilities. Titan is targeting a reduction in total energy consumption of 3%, year-over-year.

Energy Star was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the Energy Star label can be found on more than 60 different kinds of products as well as new homes and commercial and industrial buildings that meet strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the EPA. Over the past twenty years, American families and businesses have saved a total of nearly $230 billion on utility bills and prevented more than 1.7 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions with help from Energy Star.

US: A legal challenge to the cancelled Titan American Castle Hayne cement plant has ended following the termination of a challenged air pollution permit by the North Carolina Division of Air Quality. Titan rescinded the permit, following its announcement in March 2016 to cancel its cement plant project. It was originally issued in 2012.

"For years, Titan and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) tried to keep citizen groups from getting a hearing on significant and avoidable air pollution from this proposed plant," said Geoff Gisler, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Cape Fear River Watch, PenderWatch & Conservancy, and Sierra Club. "We have achieved the goal of this lawsuit - protecting citizens of New Hanover and Pender counties from Titan’s pollution when DEQ failed to do so."

Titan will continue to operate a cement terminal at the site. On 12 April 2016, the North Carolina Court of Appeals granted citizen groups’ request to dismiss the appeal because the approval of the plant had been withdrawn, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.

US: Titan America has cancelled the construction of a cement plant in Castle Hayne, North Carolina. It said it made the decision on economic reasons. Supply and demand balances in the specific regional markets did not support the cost of building a plant.

“Our decision to suspend construction on the cement plant in Castle Hayne is driven by basic project economics,” said Bill Zarkalis, Titan America’s CEO. “The pace of demand growth in the specific markets does not seem adequate to justify the addition of substantial new production capacity - more so because the costs to construct a new cement plant in the United States have risen substantially in the past few years. Finally, the overall risk profile of the project has worsened as new coastal capacity in North Carolina could be vulnerable to cement imports, considering the strong US Dollar, the global cement supply situation and low ocean freight costs.” He added that Titan is committed to long-term growth in the US and that the group is investing over US$250m between 2014 and 2016.

Titan America serves its North Carolina market from its Roanoke cement plant in Virginia, with an integrated logistics network of cement distribution terminals, warehouses and more than twenty ready-mix concrete plants. No jobs in any of Titan America’s existing operations are expected to be affected by the decision to cancel the Castle Hayne cement plant.

US: Titan America plans to build a cement plant in Castle Hayne, New Hanover County, North Carolina. However, NC Coastal Federation members, among others, are still fighting the proposal after six years. They say that the plant, which will burn more than 250,000t/yr of coal, will discharge pollutants into the Northeast Cape Fear River. Coastal Advocate Mike Giles said that they're still waiting on a decision for their challenge against Titan America's air quality permit. According to the Titan America website, the plant would bring about 160 full-time jobs to New Hanover County and have a US$120m/yr fiscal impact.