Proper waste management for recycling and recovery is a key part of the circular economy, and is an integral part of the 2030 Agenda. From ABN we want to contribute our know-how in recycling, waste recovery and how waste can be reintegrated into our value chain.
Learn first-hand about the waste recovery project that we have developed together with the company Astilleros Polináutica and Gestiones de Seguridad y Emergencias.
- ABN, Astilleros Polináutica and Gestiones de Seguridad y Emergencias collaborate in the project for the recovery of sea cages in the town of Sada (A Coruña).
- The process consisted of the removal and recovery of a total of 50 aquaculture cages and an auxiliary platform.
- The polyethylene pipes and pedestals that made up the assembly have already been transferred to ABN’s production plant in Medina del Campo where, after a transformation process, they will be reintroduced into the value chain.
- The applications planned include new products for installations such as the external protection of pre-insulated pipes, pipes for electrical conduits, irrigation pipes, sewerage manholes, among others.
- ABN, Polináutica and Gestiones de Seguridad y Emergencias are contributing to a greater circularity of the economy by generating a productive model where waste will become raw materials under the circular philosophy of upcycling.
History
For years, the aquaculture cage facility in the A Coruña town of Sada has been the only one in the world dedicated to sea bream farming, with a capacity of up to 250 tonnes per year. For this purpose, the farm had 30 cages of 25 metres in diameter, another 20 of 16 metres, and an auxiliary platform of 27 by 20 metres with eight floats.
Once this facility ceased to be operational three years ago and, after failing to find a new aquaculture operator, the Xunta de Galicia decided to dismantle it.
Challenge
The recovery of these cages was a complicated process involving their removal from the sea, cleaning and dismantling on shore. To this end, ABN, Polináutica and Gestiones de Seguridad y Emergencias have worked together to recover and reprocess all this material to reintroduce it back into the plastic value chain, as well as contributing to the care of the environment by removing this bulky waste from the sea.
Solution
In the case of the pipe and pedestal systems, ABN starts their recovery by cleaning and transferring them to its production plant in Medina del Campo, with the aim of reprocessing a total of 180 tonnes of material.
The transformation process of the polyethylene from the rafts begins with the grinding and washing of the pipes and pedestals of the sea cages. Later, a new process of extrusion, regrinding, filtering of the grinded material in the form of pellets and finally its transformation by extrusion of a new pipe is started, thus increasing its value and allowing it to be returned to the market for a new use.
In this way, new construction products will be manufactured that will have decades of useful life, maintaining and improving the quality of the final product, without the use of virgin raw materials, which is the philosophy of upcyling.
Results
- Tons of raw material recovered: 180 MT
- Tons CO2 avoided:505* Tm(calculation for 1 kg polyethylene (1.90 kg CO2) + injection process 0.91 kg CO2)
- One tonne (1,000,000 g) of CO2 under normal conditions therefore has a volume of 509,400 litres.
- This is equivalent to a 10x25x2 m swimming pool.
- The total tonnes of CO2 avoided (505 mt) would be equivalent to almost the volume of the Santiago Bernabeu stadium (in m3).
We believe that our commitment as manufacturers is to work to make our processes and products as circular, recyclable and recoverable as possible. With this joint project, ABN, Polináutica and Gestiones de Seguridad y Emergencias have been able to implement innovative practices (SDG 9) to raise the value of a material, to work on its recovery and to put it on the market to be reused for a new and longer useful life (SDG 12) and to work for the environment in the removal of marine litter (SDG 13).
