Since 1985, COGERSA SAU is a public waste management company based in Asturias (Spain) owned by the public consortium comprised of the regional Government and the 78 municipal councils. COGERSA operates a unique waste management complex (4 km2) including 3 landfills (non-hazardous, hazardous, inert waste), 4 sorting plants (light packaging, paper&cardboard, C&D waste, WEEE), 2 composting plants (green waste and sewage sludge), anaerobic digestion of biowaste, waste-to-energy for clinical waste, and 4 treatment plants for hazardous waste. Electricity production with biogas since 1989 (1st in Spain), Biomembrat® for leachate depuration (1st in Spain), laboratory, Open-lab for R&D, environmental campaigns, and visitor centre. A 58 M€ MBT plant for 415,000 t/y is under construction to be commissioned by 2023. COGERSA serves collection of MMW across 40 municipalities, 9 transfer stations, separate collection, and most of civic amenity sites across Asturias. As a result, some 850,000 tonnes of waste are yearly treated.
Involved technology: Hydrothermal liquefaction
Involved demo-site: Spain, Asturias (COGERSA)
Role: waste manager – demo-site of the digital sorting and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) pilot plants.
The unique waste treatment centre of COGERSA in Asturias (northern Spain) will host and operate two pilot plants of PLASTICE aimed at boosting the twin transition –digital and green- of plastic waste: the digital sorting plant will improve the quality of plastic waste streams fed to the HTL reactor to obtain synthetic oils (useful for the manufacture of chemicals following a circular economy). COGERSA will validate the performance of the HTL process for different materials and assess other environmental, safety and economic aspects.
As a public entity, COGERSA will also participate in the communication and dissemination of the project’s results.
