The Costa Ballena holiday resort is an excellent example of delivering world class environmental and sustainability goals. It also shows the importance of taking a long-term approach to the procurement of infrastructure solutions, not least from an operational and service viewpoint.
Costa Ballena is one of the most advanced tourist resorts in Europe. The project was launched 10 years ago when the Oficina de Turismo Andaluza, the Tourist Office of Andalusia, purchased a 4,000,000 square metre plot of land between the towns of Rota and Chipiona in the area known as the Costa de la Luz in the Province of Cadiz. The area comprises of more than four kilometres of unspoiled beaches, and is host to as many as 20,000 visitors during the high season. Only 25% of the 400 hectares has been built upon. The rest consists of green areas made up of parks, lakes, gardens, vegetable and fruit orchards, beaches and golf courses. The construction of the holiday resort was planned within extremely stringent guidelines, considering the natural environment as an essential factor.
The quality of the design, geographical location and construction was to be the best possible. All the residents of Costa Ballena were to benefit from the project, and as part of this, one of the requirements was the inclusion of an automated waste collection system in the planning of the area. The vacuum system at Costa Ballena was carried out in two stages by two different companies.
The first stage, the installation of the pipe network in the area known as Pueblo Marinero, was carried out between 1997 and 1999 by a company which at that time was called Centralsug Ibérica (nowadays Envac S.A.) using its own pipe design and dimensions. A total of five to ten percent of the 10-kilometre long pipe network was installed.
The second stage comprised the rest of the network and the collection terminal. This work was carried out between 2000 and 2004 by another company, which used its own designs. The collection network installed during this second stage comprised of inlets, valves and inlet doors. The company commissioned the system in 2004 and was subsequently responsible to operate and maintain it.
However, in April 2008, Envac was recontracted to completely restructure the collection terminal and the inlets. As a result between 2008 and 2009, Envac replaced all equipment at the collection terminal (cyclones, compactors, filter rooms etc) and the 277 inlet valves. In the summer of 2009, the collection terminal started to operate at full capacity with the collection of both residual waste and packaging. Original problems were eliminated following the works carried out by Envac S.A. The newly programmed emptying frequency is reducing collection times from 14 to 3 hours a day.
At Costa Ballena it was proved that:
- Envac is able to successfully carry out complex swap-out projects,
- The project was carried out and delivered within the agreed deadline,
- Restructuring work and the updating of the collection terminal could be done without the need to interrupt refuse collection,
- The function of the collection terminal could be optimised. Now only three hours are needed to collect between 12 and 15 tons of refuse a day, compared with 14 hours needed for the same volume previously: In terms of energy, a reduction of 68% kWh per collected ton of waste was achieved, compared to the situation prior to reconstruction and the upgrade.