These adaptation works had a budget of more than 2.8 million euros. For this reason, since the beginning of the summer, it has gone from a manual process to an automatic one, increasing the treatment capacity. In this way, it has traveled from 2.66 to 4.7 tons per hour, although with the capacity to absorb figures greater than five tons per hour. In annual terms, the packaging waste plant will go from 6,000 tons per year to reach at least 15,600 and with the capacity to reach 19,000 tons.
The third vice president of the Cabildo of Tenerife and Minister of Social Action, Marián Franquet, and the Island Councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez Medina, yesterday visited the container classification and selection plant of the Tenerife Environmental Complex (CAT). Together with representatives of Ecoembes, such as the manager of this entity in the Canary Islands, Alberto Fernández, and of the companies that have carried out the improvement works at the facility, Franquet and Rodríguez Medina were able to verify the operation of the plant on the spot.
Strategic infrastructure
Franquet highlighted the work carried out by the Insular Society for the Promotion of People with Disabilities (Sinpromi), as manager of this packaging plant, one of the facilities that are part of the Environmental Complex, a strategic infrastructure and of socio-economic interest for the Island The counselor believes it is necessary to continuous investments to improve the performance of the venue, in addition to awareness-raising, awareness-raising and environmental education actions.
For his part, Rodríguez Medina recalled that the plant did not have the technical capacity to treat the amount of packaging waste it received, with the handicap that its annual increase exceeds 12%. The counselor highlighted the notable improvement of the investment made and encouraged the citizens of Tenerife to continue separating waste at source.
The objective of this project has been maximize the recovery of existing recyclable materials during the selection process of the waste from selective municipal collection, deposited in the yellow container in Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro. Currently, they have 4,352, 145 and 121 containers, respectively, in which 11,158,750 tons of light packaging were collected last year, the Cabildo said in a statement.
The renovated plant, whose design has been technically agreed with Ecoembes, has been adapted to current needs, significantly improving the recovery percentages with the effectiveness required for this type of facility (minimum of 82%). At the same time, the obsolescence problems of the original plant are solved.
In addition to taking advantage of the existing equipment, a shredder bag opener, a ballistic separator, two optical separators, an automatic selection equipment, an inductive separator, a ferric press, a bottle puncher, an automatic storage system and a multimaterial press of high capacity.
As a complement, the Cabildo informs that in June 2020 the discharge beach of this plant for the selection and classification of packaging waste was completed. The works consisted of expanding the so-called waste discharge beach by 300 square meters for subsequent processing in the packaging plant, which has provided a larger storage area, so that it absorbs andl Increase in waste entering this facility.
