ENVIRONMENT
Environmental conservation and respect are present in all business decisions. Firmly following our company policy, which focuses on preserving the environment, it has been deemed right to comprehensively certify our processes.
The main meaningful environmental aspect in 2017 was the generation of sludge from the WWTPs under our management. A volume of 17,770t was reached, which meant an increase of 20% on the previous year. This was fundamentally due to the incorporation of new facilities and the expansion of the existing sanitation network.
The evolution of sludge generation in recent years has been as follows:
2016 > 14.727,36 t
2017 > 17.770,13 t
2018 > 17.017,68 t
The total amount of sludge produced in the past year, 2018, was 17,017.68 t. The figure is similar to the result of the previous year, owing to the unchanged number of operating facilities. However, a relevant fact is that there is an average increase of 2% in dry matter over the total fresh sludge generated, which has resulted in a decrease in residue (water present in the sludge) of approximately 50 t. This reduction has meant, in addition to a logical saving in the costs of sludge transportation and management, a decrease in the volume of generated waste.
This has been possible thanks to a number of factors:
1º.- WWTP personnel who are in charge of the tasks of drying and dehydrating the sludge enjoying greater involvement and the streamlining of the equipment for the treatment of sludge in the plant.
2º.- Laboratory level tests followed up by on-site tests on the new ranges of state-of-the-art coagulants, mainly of “reticulated” polymers, in the WWTP.
3º.- Monitoring of the measures taken and analysis of the results obtained by the plant’s Operation Technician.
100% of the sludge generated in 2018 has been appraised, and its journey’s end was as follows: compost (68.5%), elaboration of artificial soils (30%) and agricultural fertilizers (1.5%).