This has been assured to EFEverde by the president of the National Association of manufacturers of biofuels and renewable fuels (AFABIOR), Santiago Verda, which is committed to the use of the fraction of waste that is not recycled to generate less polluting fuel. However, as Spanish cement companies today "do not work as before", 90% of this CSR ends up in landfills, he said. Therefore, this association of companies uses a technology "pioneer in Spain" to treat it and obtain from it "a liquid that we use as a fuel".
Fulfilling European objectives
According to Verda, a liter of this biofuel emits 97% less CO2 than one of fossil fuel, so in his opinion it will be a good way to achieve the new European objectives in relation to, on the one hand, greenhouse gas emissions and , on the other, waste management.
The new circular economy package agreed in December in the European Parliament will force member states to value at least 50% of their municipal waste by 2020, and to limit the amount that can reach landfills to 10%. However, according to Verda, Spain is far from reaching those objectives.
The dumping in Spain is "cheaper"
In this regard, he recalled that "Spain has the lowest rate of dumping in Europe", and has ensured that this leads to other European countries with higher rates to pay for exporting their garbage and to be stored in Spanish landfills.
On the other hand, the president of AFABIOR has argued that second-generation biofuels will be the only ones allowed in the European Union from the next decade, as has been agreed this month in the discussions of Parliament in Strasbourg (France) on the energetic reform.
The first-generation agrofuels that are currently imported into Europe from South America and Indonesia "are so called because they require the rapeseed and soybean plant in these countries," said this expert, and stressed that the felling of trees that entails their cultivation leaves the energy balance in negative, so that "progressively will open the way to second-generation biofuels."