As part of Ibiza’s plans to go more green, a state of the art bio-waste processing plant is being built at the main rubbish landfill of Ca na Putxa (near the golf course). The mission of this new installation will be twofold: 1) to keep the landfill free of biowaste (food and other plant-based rubbish); 2) to turn this biowaste into fuel that produces electricity. It is expected to be completed sometime in 2020, and that is when new containers will be added at each waste disposal point so that vegetable based waste can be separated from other rubbish. This will then be processed at the new plant and converted into biofuel that will generate electricity.
When fully operational the plant will produce enough electricity to run all of its own equipment, and have a large surplus that will be put back into the grid. They say that this excess will be enough to power the equivalent of 1500 homes. As a by-product of the process, the plant will produce high quality natural compost which can be sold to farmers and gardeners. This project will extend the life of the landfill for many extra years. That is because all of the space that would otherwise have been used to dump biowaste will be available for other rubbish. The total cost of this project is estimated at 40 million euros.