Last Friday, 13th June, the groundbreaking ceremony took place for the new pre-treatment line for selectively collected biowaste at the Granada Ecocentral, located in the municipality of Alhendín. The event was led by the President of the Provincial Council of Granada, Francis Rodríguez, the Regional Councillor for Sustainability and Environment of the Government of Andalusia, Catalina García, accompanied by the Mayor of Alhendín, Jorge Sánchez, and FCC Medio Ambiente's CEO, Francisco Javier Irigoyen.

The project has a budget of over €5.3 million and has been co-financed by the provincial council and the regional government. The new complex is expected to be operational by summer 2026 and will treat around 80,000 tonnes of organic waste per year. The new line aims to differentiate the treatment of organic waste from selective collection (FORS from its acronym in Spanish), in order to obtain high-quality compost, improving recovery and recycling yields, reducing landfill waste and, in particular, reducing the organic content of landfill waste.

The new line includes the construction of a platform for manoeuvring and unloading trucks in the reception area, a new pit equipped with an overhead crane with an electro-hydraulic gripper, and the expansion of the existing sorting facility by 800 m² to integrate an exclusive pre-treatment stream with a capacity of 25-30 t/h. It also includes a reception area for vegetable waste to be incorporated into composting and the use of specific areas within the fermentation yards of the environmental compound, separated from the rest of the waste.

The mixture of the biowaste and vegetable fraction will be composted in a controlled and separate environment, ensuring a high-quality product. In addition, the processed material will be refined in specific facilities. In a second phase, there are plans to implement intensive, automated and versatile biological treatment, adapted to the needs of the growing selective collection in the province.

In the words of the president of the provincial council, Francis Rodríguez, ‘we are convinced that we must leave behind the concept of waste as something disposable and useless and see the opportunity offered by its proper management, turning it into a secondary raw material and a resource capable of generating jobs and wealth.’

For his part, Francisco Javier Irigoyen, CEO of FCC Medio Ambiente, commented that ‘this line of FORS will help us to converge with Europe [...] as we have a very important challenge ahead of us, to achieve 65% waste recovery and ensure that no more than 10% of waste ends up in landfill, which we must achieve through projects such as this one.’

This project has been made possible thanks to funds from the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of the Regional Government of Andalusia, within the framework of the Plan to Support the Implementation of Waste Regulations, financed by the European Union through NextGenerationEU funds (PRTR).