Cosentino Investing €90 Million in New Recycling Tech
MADRID – Cosentino will invest €90 million in a new plant designed to increase sustainability through reuse of industrial waste.
Circular Technology (CT) Quarry represents “the biggest turning point in the sector globally in more than a decade, said Valentin Tijeras, Cosentino’s Innovation and Product vice president, in introducing the project at a press conference here on Nov. 18.
CT Quarry aims be a first-of-its-kind “industrial-scale plant to produce innovative and sustainable raw materials for construction, glass and ceramic purposes in the European Union, following the fundamental principles of low carbon, circularity, and safety.
The project facility will consume more than 100,000 tons/year of industrial sludge from Cosentino production, bypassing the landfill and – together with other materials – produce more than 247,000 tons annually of raw materials for which industrial applications are already clearly defined.
It will also integrate the use of renewable fuels and electric energy and recover process heat, and is expected to achieve an absolute GHG emissions reduction of over 1 million tons of CO₂ over ten years.
CT Quarry is of the 16 medium-scale projects – and the only one in Spain- selected in the latest call for the European Commission Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund is one of the world’s largest financing programs for the implementation of innovative net-zero and low-carbon emissions technologies, being one of the key tools of the European Green Deal Plan.
In 2023 Cosentino invested €22 million in R&D&I projects and assets, raising this figure to more than €100 million accumulated in the last five years. A commitment that is also endorsed by an extensive industrial property portfolio that covers 30 patents families in force that protect several inventions in the countries where it operates, in addition to 88 different registered designs.
CT Quarry follows the path of more than four decades of constant product innovation, including the Hybriq+ technology “has allowed us not only to completely modify the nature of Silestone®, but also to set the path of the global industry towards more sustainable engineered surfaces, with a greater presence of recycled raw materials, and low in silica,” Tijeras noted.
Last year, all Silestone® production was under the Q40 version, with a maximum of 40% silica in its composition. In parallel, Cosentino has been advancing and producing several collections and colors from the brand’s portfolio in Q10, with only between 1% and 10% crystalline silica in its formulation.
