The Hall of the equipment for the cities and the environment takes over to Ecomed-Pollutec

More than 11,500 professionals have visited the Hall of the urban infrastructure and environment, Ecocity, held from February 27 to March 2 on the grounds of Fira de Barcelona's Gran via. Ecocity has taken with success over to the Ecomed-Pollutec Hall, which was held during 5 editions, incorporating their supply equipment for the cities. Adapts well to the demands of the market including segments industrial and municipal management, particularly sensitive to environmental issues.

The management of urban waste was one of the topics to debate

By sectors, waste is which has had greater representation, as well as that of urban and industrial cleaning and water treatment.

In addition, Hall has been the framework technical conferences, forums and conferences on alternative energy sources, gas emissions, waste management, decontamination of soils or the reuse of waste water, among others.

These include the workshop on "Policies of the Administration for the promotion of bio-diesel", where the guidelines were raised to encourage the use of this biofuel. In it, the Catalan Association of Biodièsel (ACBiodièsel) has explained the public actions that are carried out in this area. Also, various European authorities, national, regional and local have explained are its guidelines to encourage the use of this biofuel.

The main environmental contributions involving the use of biodiesel are the an 80 percent reduction in CO2 emissions, zero emission of sulphur particles and the reuse of waste and used vegetable oil (fried). The European Union is carrying out recommendations and measures to increase the use of alternative energy sources (renewable) as replacement of the use of fossil fuels. Currently, since the EU is expected to a replacement of 10 per cent by the year 2010 or 20 per cent by 2020, but until now the success of countries has been uneven: the objectives of the 2 per cent marked only got them Germany and Sweden. In order to achieve these objectives, the Central and regional Governments of the Member States will have to adopt a series of actions: which seems more imminent is the obligatory nature of mix, in the case of biodiesel with diesel fuel, or ethanol with gasolinefixed in percentage. Each product will have its strategy, but in the case of biodiesel will start at 2 percent and starting from there, there will be increasing. Other actions could be apply to administrations give example of public vehicles using biofuels and also calling on transport services of passengers to use.

Presentation of the Spanish strategy of urban environment

The ACBiodièsel, a not-for-profit which aims, inter alia, promote the use of biodiesel, entity wants to contribute to this collective effort. And in the development of his task, convenes annually a few days of dissemination of technical innovations and use of biodiesel.

In addition to being a commercial platform, Ecocity is a room designed with an intensive programme of workshops, forums and activities to address the issues facing the sector. The aim is to create a great center of debate from industrial and municipal scope arise where new environmental solutions and technical contributions. Among them, the III Forum Euro Mediterranean sustainable development, a biennial basis, under the slogan "Common value, shared-cost", which was one of the most important events in the sector, with speakers of national and international in the field of the environment.

Ecocity also convened the workshop on energy and SMEs, organized by the Federation Spanish associations of the environment (Feama), recently set up. Under the heading "Energy in SMEs", Feama issued to small and medium-sized enterprises the situation of the energy in the country, opening a debate where SMEs could position itself in this matter.

On the other hand, the Hall also hosted the 1st Forum business of waste management in the field of the Eurorregió Pirineus - Mediterranean, whose main objective is to set different actions for the joint internationalisation of companies in the area of management of waste within the scope. For the Forum are different working groups were established, for the sectors of urban waste, industrial waste and agricultural waste respectively. Issues such as technology selection, environmental taxation and the role of the observatories of the Euroregion management were common to the three groups. Some more specific were the treatment of organic matter (with the draft of the Biowaste directive on the table); the relationship between waste and energy and the future directive RES-HC (renewable energy sources - heating cooling); the valuation of construction and demolition waste; among others

Delivery of the sustainable city awards

Also, during the Ecocity Hall, and in collaboration with the Fundación Forum Ambiental, surrendered the "Sustainable city" awards to those cities of more than 5,000 inhabitants and supra entities that had successfully completed different actions aimed at sustainability. The winning categories were: "Special more sustainable city Prize" for Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque country); "Waste management" for Santander and León; "The water cycle management" to El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona); "Energy efficiency and/or renewable energy building" for Sabadell (Barcelona); "The management of land and conservation of natural resources" for Miño (A Coruña); "Innovative action" has been to Tineo (Oviedo); and in "Supra local entities" has won the provincial Council of Álava. This year, the category of "Mobility, noise and air pollution" has been deserted.

Municipal equipment was one of the novelties of the Hall

Recycling of rubble, one of the most represented sectors