LITOCLEAN’s CEO, Begoña Mundó, explains her experience in the newspaper
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Content of the article in the Ara newspaper:
Deep cleaning of high-risk brutes
Litoclean, one of the Spanish pioneers in the decontamination of soils, had a turnover of eight million euros in 2017.
A sport shooting range is considered a potentially polluting activity of the soil. Along the 200 meters from where the shotgun is fired, residues accumulate: first the cartridges, then the fragments of the plates and further on the pellets. Fluoranthene, pyrene, benzanthracene, chrysene and up to five other substances end up concentrated on the ground, with the risk that this pollution is absorbed by the subsoil, according to the analysis of the environmental consultancy Mediterra. In Catalonia there are a hundred of registered fields and, therefore, potentially polluted. But the silt in Catalonia, beyond the shooting fields, has other risks. The purins are one of them. The consequences of industrial activity are another. In 2006 the Generalitat was aware of 1,447 potentially contaminated sites, 110 of which were “in a situation of unacceptable risk”. They were located mainly in the areas of Barcelona and Tarragona.
In this last area, where petrochemical activity is concentrated, Begoña Mundó recalls having started her activity to analyze and decontaminate soils. It was the nineties and the problem existed, but there was no fiscal legislation. Its beginnings in this still unknown activity came at the hands of North American companies that already had experience in this field of activity. And so it was that in 1999 he decided to set up, together with three partners, a company specialized in the analysis of soils, subsoils and aquifers, Litoclean. The current maximum of the European Union’s directives of “pay who pollutes” was still a little short of time to reach Catalonia and Spain. And it was not until 2005 that the first regulation was approved that obliged to control the soils. That initial decree has been completed with two subsequent laws, those of 2011 and 2013.
“We noticed a very important change in 2007, when there was a boom, as if many potentially polluting industries had appeared on the surface,” explains Mundó, who suspects that this excessive growth may be linked to the crisis and the closure of companies. Nowadays, when a company stops its activity or a land changes ownership, one of the necessary authorizations is the analysis of the soil and the previous decontamination. In the case of industrial land that is to become residential, the parties involved in the purchase and sale usually agree on a division of responsibilities: the industry decontaminates up to the standards allowed for the industry and the developer continues until it is suitable for the construction of a building. The result will depend on the use to be given to that site. It is not the same to build another industry as to build a residential building or to place a school or a children’s playground there.
“We diagnose if the land is bad and we design the decontamination project. Usually whoever makes the diagnosis ends up taking care of the cleaning,” says Mundó. The preliminary work can be done in two or three months, but the decontamination is much more complex and lengthy. “At a minimum we can take two years to do it, but there are projects that last for five years if it is done while the industry continues to operate,” he explains. According to data from the Department of Territory and Sustainability, most of the actions have a cost of between 50,000 and half a million euros, but in Catalonia there are more areas (on average) than in the European Union where the complexity requires investments of up to five million euros. And 10% of these exceed this figure and can reach more than 50 million.
Litoclean’s turnover last year was close to nine million euros, one more than a year earlier. The 60% of its turnover comes from its activity abroad (it has offices in Mexico, Peru and Ecuador), which has been developed by multinationals with which it has worked in Spain. Among the works in which it has participated has been the decontamination of the old Ercros plant in Badalona, CLH in Maó and industrial zones in the Port of Barcelona. Regarding the purines, there is no activity yet. “When the administration has more clarity we may be able to do it, but at the moment it is very difficult because we don’t know who will pay for it,” he explains.