ROTECNANEWS WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ROTECNA
It is more responsible and economical to manufacture new products from recyclable materials.
All waste is deposited sorted in labeled clean points. Photo: Rotecna.
Separating waste may seem like a tedious task. Still, it is essential to give some materials a “second chance”, reduce the extraction of raw materials such as plastic, and save production costs. Rotecna has a waste management plan that describes what to do with each of them to do it correctly. Polypropylene is the material with which more products are manufactured in Rotecna. Therefore, it is also the waste that is generated the most. In 2020 alone, some 5,923 tons were injected. 3% of this plastic could be reused after passing through the mill in the company. “After crushing the plastic, we put it in big bags, and we get a quality sample to analyse it and check that the properties of this material have not been altered. When we have verified the quality of this polypropylene, it is used again in our injection machines to manufacture new products”, explains Marta Nadal, head of the Quality and Environment Department of Rotecna. Plastic is not the only waste generated from the company’s industrial activity. Aerosols, 4
scrap, oils, batteries, or contaminated packaging are some of the other waste that needs to be appropriately recycled. Garbage can be separated according to whether it is industrial or light. On the one hand, industrial waste has two subcategories: hazardous waste (substances which, because of their chemical composition or characteristics, pose a danger to public health and the environment, so that they have to be managed separately), and non-hazardous waste (including paper and cardboard, wooden pallets). On the other hand, scrap, electrical cable or banal waste). Rotecna operators must take them to one of the several “clean points” appointed in the company to separate the waste correctly. Each of them is identified with a label and a code. As for industrial waste, Marta explains that “from quality control, we make continuous inventories, and when we see that we have a large quantity, we contact the corresponding manager to come to collect the waste”. Rotecna has contracts with several managers that establish how each waste
