Circular economy: valuing waste

There are more and more com­pa­nies and or­gan­i­sa­tions in Cat­alo­nia seek­ing to re-pur­pose waste, and turn it into a re­source. Es­pi­ga­lors, for ex­am­ple, is a com­pany founded in Barcelona in 2015, with the ob­jec­tive of fight­ing food waste, by send­ing peo­ple at risk of so­cial ex­clu­sion or suf­fer­ing food scarcity, to rural areas in Cat­alo­nia to col­lect fruit and veg­eta­bles which are dis­carded by agricul­tors. This might be fruit which is bruised, or aes­thet­i­cally un­pleas­ing and there­fore harder to sell, or sim­ply fruit that ex­ceeds quan­ti­ties which can be sold be­fore per­ish­ing, but oth­er­wise com­pletely ed­i­ble. Agri­cul­ture isn’t the only sec­tor turn­ing waste to re­source. Re­ci­clauto, in Mataró, is a pi­o­neer in up-cy­cling car parts to lengthen the life of other ve­hi­cles. 2015 laws say 85% of car parts must be reusable, but after 2020 this num­ber will go up to 95% and higher, and Cat­alo­nia will be skilled in this grow­ing mar­ket.