The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR) organized a study tour to visit solid waste treatment plants, sanitary landfills and recycling facilities in both cities of Madrid and Bilbao from July 1st until the 6th, 2018. Representatives of unions and municipalities and OMSAR participated in this trip.

This visit aimed at informing the members of municipalities and unions about successful solid waste management and recycling facilities in Europe, providing them with useful benchmarks and best practices. This helped them to better understand the commercial solutions that exist in the cities’ market and how these were taken into consideration when taking decisions about any plans to manage solid waste at the local level.

The team benefited from the Spanish experience in waste management mainly in the following fields:

• Sorting waste
• Composting
• Waste to energy / electricity generation
• Sorting, treating and recycling glass and its industries.
• Eliminating odour
• Mixing trees branches with organic products.