The City Council of Igualada (Barcelona) has renewed its trust in FCC Medio Ambiente by awarding it the contract for street cleaning, waste collection and recycling centre management services in the city, which the company has been providing continuously since 1992. The contract is worth more than €12 million over the next two years, with two possible one-year extensions.

The services have been designed based on the principles of sustainability and the entire fleet will be powered by clean energy, with compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric vehicles, which will result in a direct reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) and responds to the concern of the City Council and the company for the care of the environment and the fight against climate change. In addition, exhaustive control of Service Quality will be carried out, based on a system of indicators and the evaluation of the evolution of the IQ factor (quality index), so that the more than 40,000 inhabitants of the city can enjoy services of the highest level of excellence.

The waste collection service, which manages around 17,000 tonnes per year, aims to capture the maximum volume of recoverable fractions with the goal of improving current recycling and selective collection rates, which it aims to reach 50% by 2025 through the incorporation of substantial changes in industrial collection and the progressive implementation of an efficient container system in residential areas. To this end, door-to-door commercial collection, already implemented in 2022, will also be reinforced, as will the installation of 21 new smart container islands equipped with user identification systems. The new contract also provides for improvements in containerisation, with new units and cleaning systems, as well as the closure of the transfer plant in operation since 1994, meaning that waste will be transported directly to the Ecoparc 4 Waste Treatment Centre (CTR), which will optimise operational efficiency.

The street cleaning service, which covers 170 kilometres of streets, will apply complementary treatments with water and cleaning by specific brigades. Among the main new features is the incorporation of pressure washers, sweeping machines, all powered by CNG, and electric tricycles for manual sweeping in areas that are difficult to access. A new auxiliary park will be created in the city centre, which will reduce travel times, and work sensors and tracking systems will be installed on all equipment to improve task control and efficiency. It should be highlghted the incorporation of a specific scrubber for cleaning pedestrian walkways with special needs, and new sweeping routes are being established in high-traffic areas which, when combined with basic treatments, will allow cleaning to be better adapted to urban dynamics. 

As for the recycling centre management service, which includes the municipality's fixed and mobile recycling centres, the extension of the citizen service at the fixed recycling centre on weekends and public holidays and an adjustment of the fixed facilities to improve the green areas of the site are noteworthy. 

Social sustainability is another of the fundamental pillars of the new contract, which will increase the labour inclusion of people in vulnerable situations and strengthen social cohesion through collaboration with Taller Àuria, SCCL. This collaboration takes the form of the daily provision of a brigade service made up of workers from a Special Work Centre, demonstrating FCC Medio Ambiente's commitment to socially responsible management. In addition, various communication and awareness campaigns are planned to promote citizen participation, transparency and continuous improvement of the service, with the incorporation of two new educators. Together with the opening of a new Citizen Service Office, this aims to provide more efficient, sustainable and inclusive services.