The Balearic Islands’ marine industry develops the first sector-based project to focus on circularity and reuse of waste

The first stage of the initiative involves reusing the waste generated by the marine industry and has already been put into action

The Balearic Marine Cluster and the Business Innovation Institute (IDI) have launched a project designed to favour circularity, in which different waste materials generated by the marine industry are selected and transformed into raw materials for use in other production processes.

The first stage of the project, which consists of classifying the waste materials, has already been put into practice. Last week, the authorised waste management company Adalmo collected and packaged the waste, ensuring it was ready for secure transportation to the Centre for Multi-Sectoral Technological Research (CETIM) in Galicia.

Once there, the research activities will focus on contaminated textiles and absorbents, plastic containers and covers, glass fibre and sandblasting material. Consequently, CETIM will be responsible for classifying each of these types of waste and gathering sufficient information to determine the technical and economic feasibility of transforming them into sub-products that can be reused within the industry.

At present, the waste generated by the marine industry is managed in accordance with current regulations; however, this initiative to promote waste circularity aims to go further and achieve excellence in the industry’s environmental management practices.

Additionally, the Balearic Marine Cluster is organising a series of informative events in order to educate companies in the marine industry on how to manage and separate their waste correctly. Pedro Suasi, the manager of the Balearic Marine Cluster, expressed his gratitude towards IDI “for supporting a project of such importance to an industry that is increasingly committed to making its production processes more sustainable”.

For her part, Mariona Luis Tomás, IDI’s managing director, affirmed that “the circular economy is one of the elements that we believe will shape our future and play a key role in sustainability. For this reason, at IDI we have started to collaborate with various clusters in order to promote sustainability within different industries and sectors, and this project is one such example”. She went on to make the following observation: “we should bear in mind that with the passing of Law 8/2019 on contaminated land and waste, the Balearic Islands are moving towards a model based on prevention and the promotion of the circular economy, in light of the fact that managing waste with a view to generating raw materials is a key challenge that the islands’ companies will have to meet. The companies that form part of the Balearic Marine Cluster have already begun this journey”.

Lastly, Adalmo affirmed that “we are very happy to have become a member of the Balearic Marine Cluster and to have taken part in this circularity-oriented project”.