Technical and socioeconomic impacts of malfunctioning waste management plants: A case study from Spain

Municipal waste management has a great impact on the sustainability of human processes and green policies, especially in urban sites. Although it could be achieved the full separation of the reusable and recyclable items and the complete elimination of the organic material present in it, many waste components must still be processed in waste treatment facilities. Accordingly, since the 90s, in Spain, several policies and regulations have been implemented to ensure that the new plants and the current operating municipal waste facilities were efficient, environmentally friendly and competitive. However, real conditions at these plants often differ from its intended behaviour, entailing great technical, economical and administrative impacts. In this paper, the authors first conduct a brief review of the municipal waste management regulations in Spain and then, the real process carried out in a waste treatment facility placed in Northern Spain is analyzed. This plant covers 211 councils from a rural area of 15,582 km2 and about 485,000 inhabitants; and manages between 300 and 400 kg of dry waste matter per year per capita. The implemented process initially involved € 4M/year in operating costs. Several malfunctions and operating errors have been found in the studied facility. The current average facility's performance is less than 30% from the initial design. Thus, up to 250% operation overruns have taken place. Deviations from expected operation costs have caused operation fees increases and finally, an increment in only four years in waste charges per home and year for final consumers from € 15.00 to € 40.00. Several solutions are proposed to increase plant's performance and solve found operating difficulties.