Waste Management and Territorial Impact in the Canary Islands

Juan C. Santamarta (), Luka Miklin, Cynthia Olivia Gomes-Nadal, Joselin S. Rodríguez-Alcántara, Jesica Rodríguez-Martín and Noelia Cruz-Pérez
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Juan C. Santamarta: Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria y del Medio Natural, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38200 La Laguna, Spain
Luka Miklin: Croatian Geological Survey, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Cynthia Olivia Gomes-Nadal: Faculty of Civil Engineering, Dresden University of Applied Sciences, Friedrich-List-Platz 1, 01069 Dresden, Germany
Joselin S. Rodríguez-Alcántara: Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria y del Medio Natural, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38200 La Laguna, Spain
Jesica Rodríguez-Martín: Departamento de Técnicas y Proyectos en Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38200 La Laguna, Spain
Noelia Cruz-Pérez: Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria y del Medio Natural, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38200 La Laguna, Spain

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Insularity presents several challenges in the development of Europe’s outermost regions. In the case of the Canary Islands, one of these challenges is waste management, which faces a series of difficulties inherent to territorial disparities, including land use and availability, a high percentage of protection, a large number of annual tourists and a high level of product imports. The archipelago is made up of eight islands, and waste management is significantly different in the two capitals, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, and the rest of the smaller islands. European targets for adequate waste management have not been achieved in those areas. As an example, only 16% of the collected waste is recycled currently, mainly due to a lack of infrastructure and a lack of agility on the part of the corresponding institutions. There is also pressure exerted on this sector by tourism, which accounts for approximately 40% of employment in two of the islands. As a general conclusion, valorized waste management is proposed, where the use of by-products, such as biogas or compost is implemented in sectors where they can be used, i.e., as electricity, potentially of 19 GWh/year, and agricultural supply, thus promoting recycling and the circular economy in the Canary Islands.

Keywords: circular economy; separate collection; regional development; recycling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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