Our Commitment
Titan America’s commitment to a clean and healthy environment is a corporate priority. Realizing the potential hazards created by the manufacturing of building materials, we take wide precautions to protect employees and the general public.
Customers count on Titan America businesses to recycle their waste concrete, block and other concrete products. This process eliminates the need for unsightly dumps and extends the life of community landfills. At our ready-mix plants, unused batched material is returned, and the water and aggregates are mechanically separated. The water is reused to wash ready-mix trucks or mixed with recycled and virgin raw materials to make new concrete.
Employee training is a consistent part of our environmental protection strategy, and so, too, is caring. From the boardroom to the processing plant, Titan America personnel pursue a common objective - a clean world in which to live and work.
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Titan America: Award-Winning Excellence
Titan America has been honored multiple times just in the past few months for environmental excellence, safety, land stewardship, conservation, sustainability and energy efficiency. That the company has been recognized time and again by our communities, our peers and our very own industry speaks volumes about our commitment to our governing objective and core values.
Energy Star® Award
Our two cement plants, Roanoke Cement and Pennsuco, are 2008 recipients of the prestigious Energy Star® Award. Roanoke Cement also received the Energy Star Award in 2007 and 2009. ENERGY STAR® is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping families and businesses save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.
Energy Star® Partner
In February 2009, Titan's Roanoke Cement announced that it had entered into partnership with the U.S. EPA and the Department of Energy. As a condition of the partnership, Titan America agrees to submit to independent monitoring of its energy efficiency. This includes base lining, tacking and benchmarking the company's energy performance, using tools offered through Energy Star®.
Virginia Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence
In April 2009, RCC was honored with the Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence for Land Conservation at an event held at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. Roanoke Cement was recognized for its dedication, continued open access and upkeep of the Andy Layne memorial Trail, as well as for continued stewardship of Catawba Creek. The Honorable Timothy M. Kaine, Governor, Commonwealth of Virginia gave the keynote speech and noted that the award is given to the leaders in the Commonwealth who have made an outstanding contribution toward protecting and conserving the environment and whose actions have benefitted the health and welfare of Virginia's communities and the State as a whole.
PCA Overall Environmental Excellence Award
Awarded in April, 2009, this is the highest environmental recognition awarded by the Portland Cement Association (PCA) and Cement Americas Magazine Roanoke Cement and part of the 2009 Cement Industry Energy and Environment Awards. The PCA presents the Overall Environmental Excellence Award to a plant demonstrating merit in the five categories it recognizes: Outreach, Environmental Performance, Land Stewardship, Innovation and Energy Efficiency. In addition to accepting this honor, the plant was a PCA Finalist in the Environmental Performances category and was a runner-up in the Energy Efficiency category. In 2007, Roanoke Cement was a PCA Finalist for Land Stewardship and Overall Environmental Program.
First Place, 2008 "Pride of Mine," Florida Limerock & Aggregate Institute
The FLAI presented this award in April to Titan America's Center Sand Mine located in Clermont, Florida. It recognizes the significant effort required to establish a safe habitat for a large community of gopher tortoises. Center Sand employees relocated the tortoises and will maintain their new, safe homes.
2008 Chapter Service Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA)
The American Institute of Architects has a long tradition of recognizing individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievements in support of the profession of architecture and the AIA.
2008 NRMCA Driver of the Year
It's not strictly an environmental award, but we're very proud of our own David "Pee Wee" Brooks for winning the NRMCA Driver of the Year Award. The award acknowledges the significant contribution ready-mix concrete truck drivers make to the growth and success of individual companies and the concrete industry at large. Judges review and grade applicants based on years of service to their company and the industry, driving record, yardage hauled and any certifications and other special recognitions they have received. The judges also weigh their decisions heavily on supervisors' comments and customer testimonial letters.
Cool Cities Coalition “Cool Citizen Award”
Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition recognized Roanoke Cement as a winner of the "Cool Citizen Awards” in May of 2009. These awards recognize individuals, organizations, and companies that have had the greatest impact toward reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are recognized to be a principal cause of global climate change. This year's awards recognize work that has been done since the inception of the Coalition (2006) through the present. Roanoke Cement was cited for its $12,000 grant to support measurement of community and government carbon footprints for Roanoke County and the City of Salem. The company reduced its own electricity use by approximately 6% in 2008 and received an Energy Star citation for energy savings.
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Words In Action
Environmental and Product Responsibility at Pennsuco
The Pennsuco Plant has been designed to recover and use the heat from the kiln and from the cooling clinker. Raw materials are preheated by exiting kiln gases as they fall through five cyclones in the preheater tower. The result is reduced energy requirements and a more consistent product. Innovative processes have reduced NOx and other emissions per ton of clinker to the lowest in Florida.
Remote sensors at key locations throughout the complex measure everything from machine revolutions, to vibration and heat, to the make up of the materials entering the plant. They connect to computerized maintenance and management systems in the control center. Strategically placed video cameras allow control operators to see inside the plant components – even inside the kiln. Maintenance is prescheduled, plant uptime is significantly increased, emissions are continually controlled, and output quality is very predictable.
The comprehensive lab continually tests raw materials and finished cement using automated samplers and pneumatic transport systems. Clinker samples are manually transported to the lab and all are delivered to a preprogrammed robot which routes them to various test equipment for immediate analysis. Computer readouts from the testing enables plant operators in the control room to make continuous adjustments to raw materials blends, kiln conditions, and other factors to ensure optimum operation and output.
The segmented bag house design allows maintenance on one segment while others continue to function for uninterrupted plant operation. Screw conveyors continually feed kiln dust bin material back into the production stream.
Pulverized preheater and kiln fuel coal is fully consumed in the manufacturing process. Producing intense heat – up to 3,400° F at the kiln flame – the coal adds essential mineral components to the clinker.
The Pennsuco kiln is designed to burn both pulverized coal fuel as well as a mixture of coal plus carbon rich material separated from power plant fly ash. Separation Technologies, a Titan America business, is a world leader in electrostatic separation of fly ash from coal-fired power plants. Carbon rich material from the Separation Technologies plant at the JEA power plant in Jacksonville, Florida is currently being tested at the Pennsuco plant as a possible supplemental fuel source.
Another innovative recycling initiative being studied is to introduce quantities of kiln dust from previous Pennsuco cement plants, currently in managed storage areas, as a production feed stock. Estimates are that new Pennsuco Cement Plant could consume upwards of 300,000 tons of this material over a five-year period. Recycling the existing stored kiln dust would eliminate the need for an equivalent amount of new material.
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Sustainable Development
 Titan America along with other members of the Portland Cement Association is actively engaged and committed to sustainable development—a philosophy that focuses on meeting our construction needs today without depleting future resources. We are participating in Concrete Thinking an industry-wide program designed to educate our customers, suppliers, friends and family about the benefits of concrete for sustainable development.
Sustainability Fact Sheet
Includes information on concrete and cement as sustainable building materials.
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Manufacturing Fact Sheet
Includes basic information on how cement is made and the difference between concrete and cement.
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Responsibility Fact Sheet
Includes information about the industry’s leadership role in reducing emissions and more.
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