Recycling in Spain
Business is booming for waste sorting systems
Around 160 km to the northeast of Barcelona is the small Catalonian town of Roses. Here in 2004, Norwegian recycling equipment provider Tomra installed a local branch when it took over the former local distributor. This was in response to a recycling situation that was changing for the better. With the Packaging Waste Law enacted in 1998 that stipulated new EPR requirements for manufacturers, and with the foundation of the EPRO (extended producer responsibility organisation) Ecoembes, a non-profit environmental organisation, the topic of recycling and responsibility for it was now brought into more general focus. European funding for the construction of collection and sorting facilities in Spain and Portugal did the rest and helped bring about success. Since the start, almost 800 sorting systems have already been sold in Spain and Portugal, the company has a local market share of around 60% and 30 employees now work at the Spanish site. Judit Jansana, Commercial Director and Head of Tomra Sorting Spain, discusses the current recycling situation in the country and the role her company plays.
Judit Jansana has been with Tomra for almost 15 years. From 2007, she was Head of Technical Office for seven years, before finally becoming Managing Director in the autumn of 2014. “Commodas, the company that Tomra bought in 2004, then owned a unique x-ray technology that could identify and separate Zorba waste, i.e. mixed metal waste with a significant proportion of aluminium,” she explains to us. “This helped us into new business opportunities in the field of metal sorting. After the creation of our office here in Roses, we were also able to turn our attentions to the South American market, thanks to the common language and the cultural similarities. Naturally, the waste import ban in China and changes to the Basel Convention also had a positive effect on our activities,” says Mrs Jansana.
“Because of the new waste law in Spain, which was passed in April of this year and that stipulates a landfill tax, a ban on single-use plastics and an EPR system for textiles, we are currently working mostly on projects relating to textile recycling, but also on the recovery of PET flakes because of the high demand for the separation of rPET and bottle cap flakes. We assume that, because of EU legislation, the trend towards a circular economy and increasing trademark holder engagement with sustainability issues, our recycling activities will increase in the coming years.” Even if precise figures regarding overall growth and specifically the growth of PET sorting are not currently given, we’re told that with Tomra’s technologies Autosort Flake and Innosort, PET flake sorting will demonstrate continual growth. Autosort is the bestseller here, while X-Tract takes this lead in metal cleaning. Incidentally, the new generation of X-Tract with enhanced functionality had just been unveiled.
“Basically, what we’re seeing,” says Mrs Jansana, “is a clear need in the industry for high-quality recycling end products, larger and more precisely working systems with high material throughput, and overall more lines per facility. The larger PET providers are expanding and upgrading their systems for higher capacities and are relying more heavily on process automation, the same with PET flake sorting.” There are also trends towards the recovery and processing of PET trays, coloured PET and above all, the PET waste generated inhouse in the manufacturing process. The issue of tethered caps will also create a need for in-house sorting facilities, as significantly more bottles will now be returned with caps.
Mrs Jansana explained that in the worst days of the pandemic, Tomra’s activities were maintained in accordance with the situation, and sales and service were carried on in person and also online, which worked well. She summarises the future of the Spanish branch as follows: “We are planning to bring new products and applications onto the market and to further develop existing products. There is a particular focus on plastics and materials like metals, paper, textiles and wood. Furthermore, we are also continuing to work on digital solutions, such as our cloud-based data platform Tomra Insight, to optimise sorting processes.”
Photo top: Tomra’s Managing Director Judit Jansana at her desk
