There is a place where all the old refrigerators that have already provided their great service go. And far from being a junk graveyard, they are given a second life there. 500 refrigerators a day reduced to small pieces of plastic, copper and aluminum. And from there, to another product.
This is what they do at the Ecointegra plant in Aoiz, a recycling center for waste electrical electronic equipment (WEEE) that employs 65 people.
But in order for the refrigerators to carry out this process, we need them to be deposited in the appropriate places, either at the clean point, the distributor that brings your new appliance or authorized appliance stores that collaborate with Ecolec, the benchmark in Spain for the management of WEEE. Therefore, if you need to dispose of an appliance, check it on the map of the foundation you have above.
The recycling of WEEE is especially important because it contains materials of different types and sometimes highly polluting that need to be treated in a specific way. For example, gas from refrigerators destroys the ozone layer.
“We are generating more and more electronic scrap and if we are not able to give them another life, we are going to have a problem “, explains Camino Osteriz, director of Ecointegra.
And that’s what they do in this plant, which tried up to 8,000 tons of WEEE waste last year: remove the grilles, the housings, extract the gas … The dismantled piece by piece that are separated and turned into plastic, copper and aluminum.
Circular and integrative economy
In addition, in the case of the Aoiz plant they not only work for the circular economy, but also for integration. Most of this staff are people with disabilities, such as Néstor Martín, a quality technician who has been working at the plant for six years, and who conveys evidence about this group: “We are part of society and it is good that they integrate us” .
The recycling of WEEE is, since 2005, the responsibility of manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic products and is regulated by a Royal Decree that transposed the European Directive 2002/96 / CE.
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
