Field Trip!

Today we spent the entire day learning first-hand about some of the processes that Cagliari uses to deal with waste. We toured three different plants, each with a new host of smells for us to endure.

The first stop was a paper recycling plant. This one was the biggest on the island, accounting for half of Sardinia’s paper waste (36,000 tons per year!) and one of the only plants that recycles and produces paper in addition to collecting it. With our matching green hard hats, the group walked through the plant and was able to see the process which included separating the paper, adding water to it to form a pulp, cleaning out contaminants, pressing it with a roller, and drying it so that it can become products like grocery bags and notebooks.

After a nice lunch by the beach, we trucked on to the second stop: a composting plant. In addition to finding (and nearly snatching) a friendly dog, we watched an informative video and walked around the plant. I was surprised to hear that the composting process actually costs the plant more money than they sell the final product for- 120 euro per ton goes into making the process, and they only sell it for 2! Apparently it costs a lot of money to separate the waste. The plant receives both food and yard waste, which is mixed into a 70/30 composition and then goes through various periods of maturation before it can be tested in the lab and then finally sent off.

The final attraction was a waste-to-energy plant, which revolved around an incinerator. We were told that this plant was one of the more advanced ones in Europe, as it treats three different types of waste- industrial, solid and hazardous. The process for industrial waste was different to the other two as it required much higher temperatures (1300 Celsius, which is a whopping 2372 degrees Fahrenheit). 95% of the steam that is generated is used to generate electricity!

We’ve also been tracking the various means of collecting waste around the city; pictures of this will be posted in the near future!