Professor of the UPV/EHU Gorka Bueno has provided very important information to the Basque and Basque parliamentarians. The comparison has been made known by Ekologistak Martxan on his website. In the network you can read in full the script of the Bueno conference and the PPT presentation that illustrates the background.

In recent years, Zabalgarbi has received up to EUR 24 million in aid for electricity generation from so-called green energies. Besides arguing that the burning of garbage can not be considered as a renewable energy, Bueno showed that the origin of the electricity generated by Zabalgarbi is in the burning of natural gas that smokes by 70%, but not by 70%. The most notable test was in 2006. In November 2005, the furnace turbine was seriously damaged and could not start until May 2007. In those 17 months, Zabalgarbi burned 300,000 tons of waste without generating electricity, while the natural gas that was consumed for the recovery of subsidies was burned at only 43 MW. In this context, the Basque Government authorised him to charge EUR 6 million without any kind of rubbish recovery in 2006. Now, under normal circumstances, Zabalgarbi’s profitability continues to focus on public subsidies: In 2017 it charged EUR 24 million, which have been increased year after year by the bonuses.

Another major error of Bueno is the control of the contamination of the incinerator plant. Zabalgarbi does not continuously control the emissions of dioxins and furans into the atmosphere. Those responsible for Zabalgarbi [and those responsible for Osakidetza also, Editorial Note] have insisted that incinerators carry out permanent control of dioxin emissions and that they make a general moment. For example, what Zabalgarbi’s director Mikel Huizi told the newspaper Deia, Zabalgarbi shows on his institutional page: "If the chimney is now found to shed too much dioxin, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Government) could press the button and stop the plant," he added.

But that's a lie, Gorka said. "In Zabalgarbi, four samples are taken each year to control dioxins and furans, each 6 hours, and the results are collected one month later. However, things may be done differently. There are sampling techniques at all times that allow us to know the actual emissions in the near future. But that is not planned either in Zabalgarbi or in Zubieta."

Professor Gorka Bueno provided much more information to parliamentarians about the incinerator in Bilbao. In the case of slag forests that yield burnt waste, for example: the annual calcination of 220,000 waste leaves 44,000 tonnes of slag and 7,000 tonnes of very toxic ash. Another information on climate change that will soon be addressed by the Change the Change Congress in San Sebastian: Zabalgarbi emits 274,000 tons of CO2 each year, the biggest responsible for the worsening of the climate in the Basque Country. He also talked about the pollution that the incinerator generates in the air, the soil and the vegetation surrounding Bilbao, as well as its lack of control.

Finally, Ekologistak Martxan and on behalf of Zero Zabor Bizkaia called for a complete audit of all waste management in Bizkaia, including the serious problems mentioned above.