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Antonio Alfonso Avelló
Managing director. FCC Medio Ambiente
Internacional Division
It is essential for
local communities
to become involved
in waste to energy
of waste
to energy
The present
and future
FCC Medio Ambiente played an important
role in the World Waste to Energy City Sum-
mit, organised in London last May. During
two days, more than 200 attendees, inclu-
ding authorities, executives, developers,
financial agents, technology providers, and
industrial users met in order to analyse new
markets and the challenges and global
trends in waste to energy (WTE).
For our Citizen Service Group, it is essen-
tial to have local communities involved in the
waste to energy processes to create aware-
ness among the population and, at the same
time, improve the perception of the public of
these infrastructures. This is a challenge that
can be addressed by means of communica-
tion campaigns and, most importantly acting
with complete transparency at the installa-
tion and in controlling the emissions.
This played a key role in the congress. These
measures include reducing the financial ba-
rriers to simplify protocols and finance struc-
tures thereby encouraging companies to
develop these infrastructures. The need for
innovation is also crucial not just technolo-
gical but also political, finance mechanisms
and associative models in order to speed up
the growth of this industry worldwide.
Waste to energy still has a long way to go.
In fact, it is an essential part of our Environ-
ment business and will remain so thanks to
the development strategy that we are imple-
menting. It is a very good alternative for the
treatment of waste in geographical areas with
a high population density, where the amou-
nt of disposable land is too limited to create
landfills, or if the idea is to reduce as much
as possible the size of these sites as the fi-
nal destination of waste. The system rounds
up perfectly when this technology is aligned
with the production of renewable energy (we
should bear in mind that the energy produ-
ced with these technologies are included in
the group of renewables); the economic-
financial equation is more assumable when
production incentives and its injection in the
grid is possible, either as electricity or heat.
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