Cement company ventures into waste management
Left to right: Hima Cement country CEO Daniel Petterson, NEMA director of environmental monitoring and compliance Arnold Waiswa and Total Uganda managing director Florentin de Loppinot during the Geocycle launch in Kampala on Wednesday. PHOTO JONATHAN ADENGO
What you need to know:
Problem. Many local authorities lack capacity to ably manage waste.
Kampala.
Geocycle, a waste treatment and management activity of LafargeHolcim, has launched in Uganda to provide a solution for waste management that leaves no residue.
Under the Geocycle brand, the LafargeHolcim Group, parent company of Hima Cement, offers waste management services in more than 50 countries around the world.
“Our promise is to offer a superior solution to disposing off waste in landfills. Geocycle will collect, segregate and incinerate waste in cement kilns of Hima Cement Limited, in a partnership that is set to deliver a “zero-waste” future for Uganda,’ said Mr Israel Tinkasimiire, the Geocycle country manager, at the launch in Kampala on Wednesday.
Clean future
On his part, Mr Daniel Pettersson, the Hima Cement country chief executive officer, said explained that they believe in a future without waste; our dedicated experts work persistently toward this goal. We take the extra step to solve waste challenges for our customers and society as a whole. State-of-the-art technology, tailored processes and in-depth expertise enable us to provide sustainable, safe and reliable answers to society’s waste challenges.
Mr Waiswa Arnold, the director of environmental monitoring and compliance at the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) lauded the initiative, saying the solution will help many municipalities whose waste management processes remain an unfunded priority.
“Many local authorities do not have enough capacity to collect and dispose off waste. Waste is certainly is a big challenge. When uncollected, especially urban centres leads to flooding, contamination of water sources thus leading to diseases. NEMA welcomes the Geocycle initiative which aims to have a zero-waste future.”
About Geocycle activity
Geocycle aims to provide the entire waste management process from collection, transportation, segregation, auditing, as well as disposal in a process that does not require waste to be disposed-off in landfills.
Globally, Geocycle preserves land equivalent to the size of 85 football fields annually, processes 14 million tonnes of waste materials worldwide leaving no residues and prevents greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that produced by 250,000 cars. It also saves energy equivalent to that of heating 180,000 households by processing waste from municipal sources.
Geocycle Uganda is already engaging with Fort Portal Municipality.
