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o m m u n i t i e s
Appreciation
Iñigo Sanz wants to highlight the great
work of the teams in the U.S., Spain,
and in the United Kingdom. “Our
people in Houston, jointly with the
teams from the Studies and Machi-
nery Departments in Madrid, and the
support of FCC Environment UK and
CEE have made it possible to design
an absolutely winning option for this
tender process. We had to work very
hard from here to prepare the offer and
defend the award, but the help that we
received from FCC Medio Ambiente in
Spain and from FCC Environment UK
and CEE has been tremendous and
definitive”.
“This award has generated a good
dose or excitement and enormous
motivation among all who have parti-
cipated in this process and is an ab-
solutely deserving reward thanks to the
perfect example of team work among
multicultural and diverse organizations
which are nevertheless completely and
enormously synergetic when the coor-
dination among its members functions
100% as has been the case. I have
to thank all the members of the team
and of the respective Divisions and
Departments that have provided their
collaboration.”
Do U.S. citizens act much differently
than ours?
Absolutely, from urban planning to the ty-
pes of homes in the cities where a high
percentage of people live in one-family
homes, spread out over a huge area. The
lifestyles are also quite different. They cook
less at home but consume a lot of fast food
at home which makes the type of garbage
much different from the one in Spain or in
the rest of Europe. Waste is collected usua-
lly once or twice a week, at the most, and
generally during the day instead of at night.
Each house usually has a container for or-
ganic waste and another one for other re-
cyclable items. They do not separate paper,
plastics, metal, glass, etc. There is much
more garden waste and, in many states,
there are the possible meteorological im-
pacts such as hurricanes, snow, flooding,
etc. which makes it necessary to be prepa-
red for these situations.
Is the recycling culture deep-rooted in
the U.S.?
Compared to Europe, certainly not. It was
only a few years ago that they started to
separate recyclable waste from the rest.
On the other hand, and as I mentioned pre-
viously, recyclable waste, with few excep-
tions, is collected all together in the same
container, which certainly makes logistics
much easier but makes it difficult to sort it
out and recycle it subsequently- Further-
more, the local industry is generally not very
much used to using recycled fractions as
raw materials and, therefore, most flows of
recycled products must be earmarked for
exports, which makes the business struc-
ture much different from the one we know
in Europe.
What expenditures does FCC plan to
make over the coming years?
We are contemplating, initially, gradual
and rational growth in the U.S. In principle,
expenditures will be associated with the
contracts that we may enter into which en-
sure a return on such investments I hope
there are many, but these will go hand in
hand with the corresponding contracts that
warrant such expenditures.
roject. From left to right: Andrea Rodríguez, Anthony Emilio, Carlos Puebla and Santiago Carrasco.