Domestic plastics recycling keeps its pace of growth in Spain

Recycling of plastics of domestic origin in 2009 reached 306.941 tons, equivalent to 23 of the size of the Camp Nou football stadiums. Old and outdated and the legal objectives set by the European directives and Spanish law for the years 2000, 2001 and 2008, this means having reached nearly double the rate of 22.5% established by the European directive.

Recycling of industrial packaging has remained virtually stable in recent years, and arriving at 2008, there has been a sharp fall from 29 per cent motivated by the own decline in industrial activity. However, the domestic plastics recycling has increased in 2009 by 6,23% over the previous year.

All this thanks to the system of green point, managed by Ecoembes and based on cooperation agreements between the companies in the packaging chain and public administrations. The system has given our country the infrastructure needed to collect, select and recycle, among others, both bottles of milk, water, shampoo containers or packaging of white Cork, such as bags and films of plastic generated by domestic consumption.

Spain already has more than 300,000 yellow containers throughout the streets already 93,2% of the Spanish population, covering 94 selection of plastics (40 of them automated) plants and 37 recyclers of approved plastics that make our plastic waste into a new secondary raw material for use in new packaging, bags of garbage, pipes, hangers, or street furniture.

According to the Ministry of environment and Rural and marine environment, the composition of municipal waste indicates that 48.9 per cent organic matter, 18.5 per cent to paper and cardboard, 11.7% plastics, glass 7.6%, 4.1% to metals and 9.2% other. 100% Of the plastics that we depositemos in the yellow reciclarán.

Therefore, the cooperation of citizens is essential to be able to continue to grow in the results and, in particular, in improving the quality of the collected material. The average of improper deposited in error into the container yellow has fallen to 23% in 2009; even some municipalities are already below 15%. The improper even include paper and paperboard in the yellow, which make it difficult for the recycling of plastics.

Cicloplast is still committed by public awareness activities, as well as the development of technical projects of r & d to provide eco-efficient solutions and sustainable end markets for recycled plastics.

Whereas all applications of plastics, not only packaging and, compared to the rest of European countries, Spain maintains an index of similar to the European average material recycling. On the other hand, the rate of energy recycling of plastics in Spain (13%) remains virtually unchanged and is still well below other European countries with rates above 50%. Bet on energy recycling is not incompatible with the promotion of material recycling for the leading countries in energy recycling in Europe also have the highest rates in material recycling.

Plastics are virtually, accumulated energy, solid oil, as they contribute to the saving of energy in any of their applications and, at the end of its useful life, the energy they contain, in the form of electricity, heat can be recovered or forming part of a CSR, in replacement of traditional fuels. By properly combining recycled material with the energy we are contributing to the goal of zero discharge.