At Aznalcóllar (Seville), FCC has inaugurated the first plant in Andalusia for recycling electrical and electronic waste. The project cost 9.2 million euro.

Located on a 25,000 square-metre site, the plant has three separate processing lines: white goods (fridges, air conditioners, freezers, washing machines), brown goods (televisions, stereos, monitors, VCRs, photocopiers, etc.), and lamps (fluorescent and incandescent).

It is expected to recycle 11,500 tonnes of electrical and electronic waste in 2008, equivalent to 115,000 refrigerators, 1.7 million fluorescent tubes and approximately 300,000 televisions and monitors.

An 80% recovery rate was attained during trials in the last seven months of 2007, and the plant expects to exceed that rate in 2008.

The plant will recover over 9,200 tonnes of raw materials which will be returned to the production cycle, thus sparing raw material use. This will contribute to improving the environment by avoiding uncontrolled emissions of large amounts of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), a greenhouse gas that is one of the main culprits for the hole in the ozone layer, while also reducing the amount of mercury and other compounds being disposed of in landfills.