Waste sorting plant (Ecoparque)

A waste sorting plant, also known in many regions as an ecoparque or material recovery facility, is a facility that receives municipal and industrial waste, whether collected separately or as residual waste, to separate the recyclable materials and send them on to the relevant recovery processes.

These plants are one of the pillars of the waste-management system in Spain and across Europe, because they make it possible to recover valuable materials such as plastics, metals, paper, cardboard and glass, reducing the volume that ultimately reaches landfill.

They are what gives separate collection its purpose, ensuring that waste is actually turned into secondary raw materials within the circular economy.

Legal context

Spain's Law 7/2022 on waste and contaminated soil for a circular economy recognises sorting plants as essential infrastructure for managing municipal waste.

In many regional and local plans they are called ecoparques or mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) facilities, depending on whether they only sort materials or also treat the organic fraction.

Main functions

1. Waste reception: the residual fraction of municipal waste and streams collected separately (packaging, paper and cardboard, glass).
2. Weighing and inbound control: recording the tonnage received and its origin.
3. Pre-treatment: bag opening, initial shredding and screening.
4. Material separation: manual and automatic systems to separate plastics, metals, paper, cardboard and glass.
5. Temporary storage: recovered materials are baled and sent to final recyclers.
6. Reject management: the non-recoverable fraction is sent to landfill or to energy recovery.

Sorting technologies

• Rotary screens (trommels): separation by particle size.
• Magnetic separators: recovery of ferrous metals.
• Eddy-current separators: extraction of non-ferrous metals such as aluminium.
• Near-infrared (NIR) optical sorters: automatic sorting of plastics by type (PET, HDPE, PP).
• Air separation: separation of light films.
• Manual picking: quality control on the sorting lines.

Types of sorting plant

1. Light-packaging plants (yellow container).
2. Paper and cardboard plants (blue container).
3. Residual-fraction (mixed) plants.
4. Glass plants (green container).
5. Integrated ecoparques: handling several fractions at once.

Benefits of sorting plants

Environmental

• Recovery of recyclable materials.
• Less landfilling and incineration.
• Lower extraction of virgin raw materials.

Economic

• Revenue from the sale of recycled materials.
• Better return on public investment in separate collection.
• Green-job creation at the facilities.

Social

• Public confidence in the recycling system.
• Cleaner urban environments.

Regulatory framework

• Law 7/2022 on waste and contaminated soil.
• Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC (amended by Directives (EU) 2018/851 and (EU) 2025/1892).
• Royal Decree 1055/2022 on packaging and packaging waste.
• Regional waste infrastructure plans.

Management challenges

• High presence of contaminants (impurities) in separate collection, which lowers the quality of recovered material.
• Need to invest in automation to improve efficiency.
• Reject management, which can still represent a significant share of the waste treated.
• Local acceptance in neighbourhoods near plants, owing to noise and odours.

Ecoparques and the circular economy

Ecoparques are key nodes in the circular economy because they ensure that separate collection translates into real material recovery. They allow plastics, metals, glass and paper to re-enter productive cycles, contributing to the European recycling targets of 55% by 2025 and 65% by 2035. Without them, separate collection would lose much of its effectiveness and a large share of waste would end up in landfill.

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