# Does reclaiming foundry sand lower or raise a foundry's carbon footprint?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/foundry-sand-reclamation-energy-and-carbon

Usually lower overall, but not on site. Mechanical reclamation adds electricity and thermal reclamation adds gas or oil to your Scope 1 and 2, while it cuts new sand mining, transport and landfill, which sit in Scope 3. Count both sides with your own figures before claiming a saving.

## What goes up

- Electricity for attrition and classifying units x 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh.
- Gas, LPG or oil for thermal reclamation that burns off resin binders.
- Dust collection power.

## What goes down

- New silica sand bought, and its quarrying and drying.
- Truck trips for new sand and for waste sand to landfill.
- Disposal fees, which often pay for the unit.

## Report it fairly

Show the on site increase and the upstream and waste decrease separately, with the tonnes behind each. Buyers distrust a single net figure without the parts.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel, electricity and freight invoices into a dated, fingerprinted record per site, so each figure you send a buyer can be traced back to the documents behind it.

- [Sea coal in green sand](https://senseible.earth/answers/sea-coal-in-green-sand-co2-scope-1)
- [Foundry per tonne good casting](https://senseible.earth/answers/foundry-carbon-footprint-per-tonne-good-casting)
- [Kolhapur castings buyer data](https://senseible.earth/answers/kolhapur-foundry-castings-buyer-carbon-data)

Sources: [CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-database/?lang=en), [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html)

Last reviewed 2026-10-21.