More than 22% of the population of Gipuzkoa will live in May in the municipalities of the CAV and Navarra that collect more than 75% of the classified waste. And if, in the future, the decisions taken by other municipalities are carried out, by the end of 2014 they could reach more than 30%.

Last February, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa presented to the political parties and the social partners the conclusions of the new waste management plan for the territory, which plans to build the necessary infrastructure in a scheme without an incineration plant. With the incinerator included, the budget estimated in the previous legislature will cost a third in cash and will have to put Gipuzkoa recycling rates at 60% in 2016 and 75% in 2020.

Leaving aside the chronicle of the conflicts and debates of the five years after that 2009 that Usurbil premiered, whose details the media have been developing for the citizens, the intention is to summarize the results and achievements obtained, together with an explanation of the decisions and steps to follow.

85% by themes, 50 kilos of rejection...

Widespread selective collection is no longer a myth: In Gipuzkoa, 150,000 people, 22% of the province, will live this May in the nearly 50 municipalities that achieve it. These have made it possible for the Gipuzkoa Waste Consortium to have definitively discarded the incineration plant planned in Zubieta.

The drafters of the PIGRUG General Plan 2002-2016 for this territory a dozen years ago knew that there was an alternative system: The experts called to speak from Italy presented the Racolta Differenziata Porta a Porta, which was already in operation. However, since its launch in Usurbil in 2009, Atez at has had to overcome all kinds of obstacles over five years. The results are in view of what you want to see. Regarding recycling rates, all municipalities that participate in some modality from Door to Door exceed 75%, many exceed 80%.

Collection of all waste fractions improves. Figures increase in paper-cardboard, light packaging, glass, etc. In addition, cleaner are collected, with the importance this has on the subsequent recycling capacity of these materials. However, in addition to the percentages, in these peoples it has been realized that in this matter it is essential to reduce the rejection collected, to reduce what cannot be recycled.

For example, the community of Sasieta, which groups together the municipalities of Goierri and Urola Garaia, sent in 2012 a 39.6% of selective landfill collection of 232 kilos per person per year, 232 of the 382 generated. In 2013, starting in the summer, some urban systems in the region were modified, so 182 kilos of rejection were eliminated.

The 182 kilos of rejection corresponds to the average recycling rate of 45% that Sasieta gave in 2013. However, comparing the data of each village in the community, the following data is easily understood: in municipalities that have a good collection system, they manage to reduce between 60 and 50 kilos or less, reusing, recycling or composting the rest. That's what the revolution of the Zero Zabor model is about.

Seven faces of a system

How is each variable in the new system called? Door to Door, mixed, forced, model Trash Zero... In Gipuzkoa, a number of formulae have been drawn up around the same idea: citizens selectively deliver their waste to the administration, it is not a permission to mix them.

In all municipalities that have managed to exceed the recycling rate of 70%, large containers have disappeared from the streets to deposit mixed waste. It was tantamount to misgivings. Everywhere rejection is picked up door to door.

In Ataun and Ormaiztegi, the remainder in containers. In Legazpi door to door and the rest in containers. Although it has been called a mixed system, it would be more appropriate to say Door to Unit Door or Mixed Door. In Bergara, for the peace of the town hall, which was later seen to have made a gesture in vain, rejection and organic, the rest in street containers, have begun to be picked up door-to-door.

Then comes the classics from Door to Door: four hanging sections. (The reader will know that glass bottles, fabrics, stacks and other street containers or special waste warehouses are deposited in almost the entire Basque Country.) Usurbil began to ask the citizens to deposit organic in the famous cube and hang it in a fairly free way. Since then, in some villages paper and/or light packaging are hanged in reusable coloured covers, in others many are special packaging for all sections...

Any news of chip containers?

The other widespread collection, which has already been proven, and which has also achieved the best results, is the model released by Orendain, the smallest village of Zero Zabor. All the organic is composted by the neighbors themselves and the rest of the sections -without schedules, the small towns have advantages within the houses that the City Hall has organized for them.

Soon the new variable from Puerta a Puerta, community, will be seen in Zestoa: the City Hall will collect and collect the containers of the portals daily. This is another of the modalities studied for Azpeitia.

On the contrary, for almost all of the year no more news has been published of chip-containers that should be used to overcome conflict and waste politicisation. In Elgeta and Zumaia the mandatory modality was sought with this Door No Door, but perhaps they have encountered technical problems.

In addition, new modalities may emerge, but they will not be able to give a recycling rate of 50%, but will be generalised, mandatory and personalised. Volunteers do not exceed 50%. After demonstrating this impossibility in Gipuzkoa, Atez Atez Lazkao, Aretxabaleta and more have been withdrawn. The debate on the obligation continues in Orio, Urnieta, Orereta-Errenteria, Donostia-San Sebastián and many others.

Who needs BMR?

The knot of the new management without incineration plant is now focused on the new infrastructures that Gipuzkoa needs quickly. Some of them had to be already built, such as the Zaldunborda composting plant that Txingudi has forgotten.

In these infrastructures the main stars are the organic waste collected separately, the traditional pig food, the plants that have to be converted into compost, and the TMB that will treat both the mixed waste and the rejection given by the pioneer countries for its inertisation (i.e. for its putrefaction or for the transfer without risk of contagion).

Who will pay? All the same? To begin with, each municipality will send for its treatment a very different quantity of kilos of rejection per person per year.

Consult the community of Sasieta that shows the data in a more orderly way: 15% of the population of Zaldibia goes to landfill, but 58% of the population of Idiazabal. In January, 13,800 residents of Beasain sent 227 tons of mixed rejection to the landfill, while Ordizia, Zaldibia, Segura and Legorreta (14,259 inhabitants), in total, have sent only 80 tons, 35% of Beasaindarras. Do you pay the same thing?

In addition to the figures, the composition of what peoples throw in rejection is of particular importance. Because CMT means Mechanical and Biological Treatment of the rest, it is easily understood that the populations that perform a good collection, from the second, biological, need very little, because it only carries organic. The greatest need for this B of the BMT is for those who are the worst to raise to stabilize all the corrupt who leave in the rejection.

The renewed planning of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa provides for a TMB capable of treating 170,000 tons of rejection a year. If it were for the peoples who make a good collection, it would suffice to have one less than half. The same will happen in case of discussing the place where the last rejection will be placed after treatment. It is the responsibility of municipalities and citizens who are committed to the transfer of mixed waste, both economic and other costs.

2022.erako... Contarina model

Will the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa agree with some opposition party on the infrastructure plan that it has just presented? It has a hard job. When the whole policy is heating up engines for the 2015 municipal elections, the main exercise of the opposition has been to let Bildu do nothing, both in waste, motorway tolls, taxation or taxes on empty housing. The Basque Journal continues to monitor closely the manoeuvres of each other.

But, even if someone finds it paradoxical, if someone has the need for waste treatment as it is now in the next legislature, it will be the municipalities that least recycle. That is to say, in those municipalities where, due to lack of sufficient force, Bildu has not been able to establish a selective generalized collection or, if desired, in which Bildu can be removed more easily. Bildu could lose power in Gipuzkoa or in some villages, but the Zero Zabor model is already defined as an alternative.

These municipalities that exceed 75% in the selective collection now have new steps ahead of them. Like before, they also have models. The Contarina community in Italy is a good city.

The situation in Contarina was presented a month ago at the conference held by the coordinator Zero Waste Europe in Paris by its president, Paolo Counted. It manages the garbage of 560,000 inhabitants in the region of Treviso, next to Venice (Gipuzkoa has 709,000). Door-to-door waste has been collected since 2001.

In 2009 they took the next step by adjusting the waste tax: the rate to be paid for each of them has a fixed part (depending on the number of inhabitants of families, in the case of shops per square meter) and the other part varies depending on the garbage that is generated. The polluter pays the most.

Contarina is the Italian champion in waste management in all its sections. By making Italy’s management cheaper, charging the lowest rates to families, 55-58 kilos of rejection per person per year have been generated (303 in Italy). And they do it with a clear goal for 2022: reduce the amount of final rejection to 10 kilos a year.