Recycling : Europe's first recycling platform for the refractory industry

Saving greenhouse gases: No industry can avoid this anymore. Recycling plays an important role here. Manufacturers of refractory products can save an average of 1.8 tonnes of CO2 if they use one tonne of recycled refractory bricks or material. This is where the MIRECO platform comes in.

"By increasing the use of recycled material, bricks or mixes across the refractory industry, we massively curb CO2 consumption in our industry, but also that of our customers - including global steel, cement and glass manufacturers," explains Sabrina Salmen, Advisory Board Member of MIRECO and Senior Executive VP Recycling at RHI Magnesita. "However, it is not enough if only we, as the largest player in the refractories industry, push recycling. We will only achieve major CO2 savings if all refractories manufacturers include recycled raw materials in their portfolio as standard," Sabrina Salmen is convinced.

MIRECO, founded in 2022 by RHI Magnesita, the world market leader for refractory products and solutions, and the Horn & Co. Group, a leading recycling company in Europe, is Europe's first platform in the refractory recycling sector. It offers recycling, production and sales of recycled raw materials for the ceramics and steel industries, as well as on-site production at customers' facilities. The core of the platform is the CERO (Continous Economic Recycling Optimisation) waste concept, an individually tailored concept that enables the use of high-quality, recycled raw materials and prevents expensive and environmentally harmful landfill as far as possible.

The platform has set itself the goal of processing more than 160,000 tonnes of material in the first year of its existence, which means a CO2 saving of more than 300,000 tonnes - as much as more than 17 million mature trees would have to compensate annually. Seven recycling plants throughout Europe (Germany, Austria, Sweden and Poland) with a total of 150 employees are ready for this.