BOOSTING BIO-BASED CIRCULAR ECONOMY - NEWS FROM Castilla-La Mancha Region, SPAIN
On the 25th of January 2022, Carmen Frontaura (Region of Castilla-La Mancha) and Ignacio Aguilar (Technical Director RSU Ciudad Real) attended the BIOREGIO online workshop on Boosting bio-based circular economy together with the SMEs to overcome the impacts of COVID.
The Castilla-La Mancha region, Spain, has presented the latest projects and milestones achieved on the development of Regional Strategy for Circular Economy and the promotion of domestic and community composting of bio-waste whose germ and first steps were deeply influenced by the BIOREGIO project.
The principal actions presented were:
- Creation of a network of circular economy agents and a free and open platform as their meeting point. The principal objective is to identify projects and initiatives and the establishment of synergies between the agents. Inside this line, was organized the first “Hackathon on circular economy” to involve the business community and citizens in searching for innovative solutions to 3 environmental challenges: Detection of illegal dumping, Increasing waste reuse and Increasing the use of reclaimed water in industry.
- Creation of an Expert forum integrated by leader companies on their sectors (Innovation, waste management, renewable energies, eco-design, etc…), to analyze legal barriers, economic or technical difficulties to develop circular economy in the region. And also to promote solutions and help in the preparation of legislative, regulatory and fiscal documents
- Creation of a Chair in Circular Economy in Castilla-La Mancha University.
- And other initiatives as 5 projects of Circular Tourism (considering it as a strategic sector) and Circular industrial areas (to create industrial symbiosis & connect their waste).
The intervention was completed by the explanation from Ignacio Aguilar, technical director of the public Company which is in charge of the collection and treatment of municipal waste in Ciudad Real Province (RSU Ciudad Real) which is a stakeholder of the project since the beginning.
His intervention included the state of development of the community composting projects in Ciudad Real. Actually, it is working on 10 municipalities (6000 inhabitants) and the other 3 municipalities (1000 inhabitants) and in the near future, it will be implanted in other 4 areas that include 40 municipalities and 300.000 inhabitants altogether.
The projects include (among other things) domestic food waste bins for the families, community composters and a technician that advises citizens on the process of composting. It also includes a web application and app for mobile devices that allow us to manage the process (ECOMPOSTAJE).
In bigger municipalities, the objective is to improve the separation of organic compostable fractions up to 40% in the next 5 years and reduce the improper fraction to less than 20%.
For the treatment of bigger municipalities, it has projected the Almagro’s plant where, among the composting of biowaste, it is included a vegetal shredder to treat the stockpiles of big branches coming from the municipalities. This plant will have the capacity for treating 10 tons per hour.
