The challenge

Assimilable municipal waste is that which is generated by companies but which is not industrial waste.

In other words, organic matter, paper and cardboard and packaging generated in common areas, offices, canteens, etc. It is a type of waste that would be considered as municipal, but as it is generated in industrial estates, it is outside the municipal collection circuit, so each company is responsible for managing its collection on its own. Since these are not large amounts of waste and since there is no established separation and recycling plan, most of the time it ends up being disposed of all together in the landfill.

The prewaste solution

To solve these problems, Prewaste streamlined a pilot test with the collaboration and support of the Barberà del Vallès, Sant Quirze and Sabadell Councils to organize joint collections in the Can Salvatella area. The success of this test gave rise to the Circuit Simbiosis project, which brings together eight companies from this Barberà del Vallès estate.

If the companies of an industrial state create an association, they can group services that simplify management processes, reduce logistics emissions, manage to gather sufficient quantities to make the segregation and recycling of waste viable and save costs by dividing them between several companies.

Organic waste is turned into compost and packaging, and paper and cardboard are recycled. All while ensuring the traceability and transparency of the processes.

Results

We managed:
22.1 tons of organic fraction.
3.6 tons of packaging.

We have reduced:
Between 80% and 90% of CO2 emissions in packaging and cardboard
43.4% of CO2 emissions in the organic fraction

We have prevented:
8.3 tons of CO2 from being emitted