Port of Rotterdam – Cooperation is key for the transition

Concrete circular economy projects

With the vision of having local industrial and logistics activities in the region completely circular by 2050, the Port of Rotterdam Authority is working together with a wide range of partners on a number of projects, following four key circular pathways: innovation and scaling-up; sorting and recycling; industrial symbiosis; and capture and reuse of CO2.

Waste to Chemicals

Port of Rotterdam with Air Liquide, Enerkem, Nouryon and Shell are developing the first plant in Europe that processes 360,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste (more than the annual waste from 700,000 households) into 270 million litres of sustainable methanol.

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Carbon Capture Usage and Storage

Port of Rotterdam, Gasunie and EBN are jointly preparing a project in which CO2 generated by the industry in Rotterdam’s port area is captured and stored in empty gas fields deep in the North Sea seabed. By 2030 they expect to be able to store between 2 and 5 millions tonnes of CO2 every year.

 

​Carbon Capture Utilization​

Alta Innovation Support does not consider CO2 as an emission but uses it as a raw material for the chemical industry in particular.​

 

Beaumix​

Contractor Boskalis uses building material from waste to construct an overpass at Maasvlakte 2. The cleaned material has even better properties than sand.

 

 

Heat network​

Residual heat generated in the Port of Rotterdam supplies heating and warm water to potentially 500,000 households, greenhouses and to companies that require heat in their production processes.​

 

Reko thermal cleaner ​

Reko has started construction on a new thermal decontamination plant that will be able to convert an annual total of 1.2 million tonnes of residuals into base materials, electricity and heat.