Back in 2021 I had my last participation on projects related to Solid waste treatment plants, in this case our team was developing the base project for an internacional tender on Cascais with a innovative technology.
The idea was for people in Oeiras, Sintra, Mafra and Cascais to source separate the organic fraction, in this case using a specific green bag that should be placed together with the standard solid waste stream. The advantage of this is that the municipalities could use the already existing collection system to collect these green bags with organic, so with almost no extra costs. But because of this you would need to separate the green bags from the rest, right?
The scope of the project was to execute the refurbishment of an existing Tratolixo treatment plant to perform the separation of these green bags from the solid waste stream. How do you do this? Currently it's all automated using a special equipment called optical sorters.
So eventually the consortium of Efacec and Envac won the project, and almost 3 years after, the tender, the plant was inaugurated.
I'm glad to see that this turned out to have a successful inauguration, and hope the final plant design was not that different from the initial one we built 😅
It's incredible to see how much time it takes a project from the initial steps to the conclusion, and for sure this started long before the tender with much planning and debating and also users engagement because the success depends on how the people (end-users) from these municipalities adhere to the initiative by properly using the green bags. #projectmanagement #stakeholdermanagement
Why is it important to separate the organic fraction? So normally the organic fraction is used in 2 steps, 1st to produce energy (biogas) in big tanks called digesters, and in a 2nd step the remaining material passes on a process to create compost that is then used for many porpuses. If the organic fraction is not source separated the final compost will have many contaminants, with low quality and the end usage will be very limited (not good for agricultural purposes).
Below I provide links from each municipality for people to adhere and explaining how to obtain the green bags (you don't pay for the bags).
If you have a house in these municipalities check the links, or share them with friends and family members.
Município de Oeiras
https://lnkd.in/dJMXXcVN
Câmara Municipal de Cascais
https://lnkd.in/dyA8ikWT
Mafra
https://lnkd.in/dQ2yqMWn
Câmara Municipal de Sintra
https://lnkd.in/dmdk3E8b
Congrats to the teams in Efacec, Envac, Tratolixo, the municipalities involved and the intermunicipal services (SMAS Oeiras e Amadora, SIMAS Oeiras e Amadora,...).
#circulareconomy #wastetreatment #greenbags #wastemanagement #sustainability
A TRATOLIXO inaugurou hoje a Unidade de Tratamento Mecânico com Separação Óptica Automática de Sacos com Biorresíduos, situada no Ecoparque de Trajouce, em Cascais, um projecto co-financiado pelo POSEUR.
O Presidente do Conselho de Administração, Nuno Soares, esclarece que “a nova unidade é um contributo fundamental e estratégico que evita o desperdício dos biorresíduos e permite contribuir para o aumento das taxas de reaproveitamento e reciclagem. Poderemos, assim, aumentar a nossa capacidade de produção de biogás e de energia elétrica que injetamos continuamente na rede elétrica nacional, bem como de composto orgânico de qualidade para aplicação na agricultura”.
#tratolixo #sustentabilidade #ambiente #reciclagem
