Resource Efficient Manufacturing and Circular Economy

IFB REFRACTORIES was founded more than a century ago. At that time, resources were not as easily available as today and transportation costs were very high. This explains why the factory is located in the center of France, close to refractory clays resources and where saw dust from oak trees is abundant.

As a living Heritage labelled company, IFB REFRACTORIES has remained loyal to the principles of resource-efficiency management, which structure the entire manufacturing processes.

Internal recycling has always been a major focus. 63.5% of internal rejections are reincorporated into the production process for new products. These rejections concern mainly the external aspect of the products and don’t affect the intrinsic quality of the products at all. The rest waste is carefully sorted out to fill our old queries. In the meantime, our R&D team works hard on the development of new valorizations for these rejections as well.

In terms of volume saw dust is the biggest part of our raw materials. The sawdust is incorporated in our mixtures to create the porosity of our insulation bricks. Saw dust is sourced from local sawmills, which produce different goods from local oaks, such as barrels for the wine or spirits. This saw dust is precisely calibrated to monitor the required porosity. The residual dust is then further grinded until the grains reach the right size to be processed. The final dust that cannot be processed is sold to cattle brewers ensuring 100% valorization of this key resource.

The future challenges are linked to external recycling at the end of life of the products. A complicated issue as it requires extremely precised sorting. IFB REFRACTORIES started to tackle the topic by starting with a specific raw material which could be incorporated in the near future.

We will keep you posted on the progress…