Post by account_disabled on Mar 13, 2024 4:11:33 GMT -5
The current waste management in Spain presents notable deficiencies that have a negative impact on results. One of them is the insufficient financing of local entities By MÍRIAM GALINDO FERNÁNDEZ 4943 readings AUTHOR MIRIAM GALINDO FERNÁNDEZ 10-18-2023 TAGS CIRCULAR ECONOMY In 2020, Spain failed to meet some of the main objectives regarding municipal waste management established by European regulations. Specifically, the waste prevention objective established a 10% reduction between 2010 and 2020 and Spain remained at 7.5%; while in relation to the 2020 objective of 50% preparation for reuse (PxR) and recycling, only 40.5% was achieved (with an estimated value for 2021 of 36.7%) 1 . The percentage of PxR and recycling is the most global indicator, and the European Commission (EC) has warned Spain on 3 occasions (2015 2 , 2020 3 and 2023 4 ) of the risk of non-compliance with this objective , identifying different measures to apply to avoid it. Part of the proposed proposals have already been incorporated into Law of April 8, on waste and contaminated soils for a circular economy and Royal Decree 1055/2022 on packaging and packaging waste, but other problems and evolution persist. is slow.
In fact, the gap of 9.5 points of non-compliance with the 2020 PxR and recycling objective is even widening , and this occurs for two reasons: because the objectives continue to increase for 2025 (55%), 2030 (60%) and 2035 (65%) and for the approved methodological changes: The measurement point of what is considered recycled waste 5 becomes the entrance to waste conversion processes into new raw materials, and improper waste and losses that have been accounted for up to now must be discounted. Starting in 2027, biostabilized waste will not be CZ Leads allowed to be counted as recycled 6 . This waste represented 16.2% of the 2020 PxR and recycling indicator, which would remain at 24.3%. The current waste management in Spain presents notable deficiencies that have a negative impact on results . One of them is the insufficient financing of local entities. Law 7/2022 establishes that, by April 2025, local entities must have a waste rate, or a non-tax public property benefit, that is specific, differentiated, not deficient, that allows the application of payment for generation and that reflects the real cost (direct and indirect) of waste management. According to the Waste Tax Observatory (2022), 97.6% have a specific figure, but the estimated cost coverage is only 71.8%. Furthermore, the quotas of the municipalities analyzed are fixed or depend on a variable that has no relation to the generation of waste and the participation of the household in its selective collection, and in practically no case do they incorporate payment systems per generation.
Thus, although the figure of the waste tax is very generalized, these do not respond to the requirements incorporated in the Law and do not promote prevention or the correct separation of waste. On the other hand, the deployment of separate collection of the organic fraction is very low. According to the latest state characterization of the weight composition of the waste (Applus, 2012), the organic fraction represents 42.7%. This data shows the importance of implementing separate collection of this fraction to achieve the objectives of separate collection and PxR and recycling. Law 7/2022 incorporated the obligation to separately collect biowaste before June 30, 2022 for local entities with a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants, and before December 31, 2023 for the rest. Although there is no official data regarding the number of municipalities that have already implemented this separate collection, in the majority of the Autonomous Communities it is very scarce or non-existent. Spain has a long way to go if it wants to not only achieve the objectives set, but also not increase the gap between its results and the objectives defined by the regulations. Another weakness is the limited presence of high-efficiency collection models, which allow achieving levels of separate collection and quality of the material collected that are much higher than traditional systems using open containers on public roads. These systems include the door-to-door (PaP) collection system and closed or smart containers (with identification). Although both systems are considered highly efficient in Law it is worth highlighting the proven solvency of the PaP derived from the hundreds of examples in operation for years at the national level, as well as internationally. The evidence on the results of smart containers is still scarce due to the few experiments carried out and the lack of sufficiently extensive data series.