French recycling company Paprec, specialised in waste management and recovery, continues to develop its growth plan in our country, describing it as "the conquest of Spain”. Following the acquisition of three companies in the industry that have given it a presence in Andalusia, the Basque Country, Castilla-La Mancha and Valencia, the firm has just announced the purchase of 60% of the Catalan company GBi Serveis, which has 500 employees and a turnover of 40 million euros.

The focus on Spain is due to the fact that half of the waste collected in our country continues to end up in landfill, which leads us to foresee growth in recycling and energy recovery in the coming years. The strategy, already implemented in France, is to grow by buying companies or majority shareholdings to gain a foothold in the market and access to both private and public contracts. The goal is to expand throughout the country.

Collection tenders
Paprec España already has 600 employees in Spain, and a consolidated turnover of 60 million euros, which is expected to increase to more than a hundred million euros by the end of this year. To date, the company has won four tenders for waste collection, waste management and cleaning, which represents a turnover of some 40 million euros.

GBi Serveis, headed by Gustavo Buesa, is based in Lloret de Mar (Barcelona). It specialises in the collection, separation and treatment of urban waste, as well as the cleaning of municipalities and beaches. The firm manages three wastewater treatment plants and several storage and composting centres, and has an extensive portfolio of contracts in Catalonia.

European standards
The group's president in Spain, Mathieu Petithuguenin, explained, "Spain offers excellent potential development opportunities for our companies: the country is still very much focused on landfill, but public bodies and industrialists are keen to rapidly reach the best European standards by growing recycling and energy recovery from waste. Our experience and expertise should enable us to take a major step forward in the ecological transition and decarbonisation of the economy".

Paprec Spain CEO  Sylvain Cortés stated his intention to offer his customers "the best existing technologies for the recycling and reuse of their waste", and added, "Our ability to design customised and innovative solutions is the main asset we have to convince the market, always with the aim of generating as much value as possible - in materials or energy - from waste".

Urban and industrial waste
Paprec Spain's first two purchases were completed in May 2022: Reciclados y Servicios del Mediterráneo (Recimed), based in Villena (Valencia), and Eco Actrins, based in Almansa (Albacete). Recimed has an annual capacity of 250,000 tonnes, a solid recovered fuel (SRF) production line, an industrial waste sorting line, a green waste recycling platform and a shredding centre for end-of-life tyres.

Eco Actrins focuses its activity on the collection of domestic and industrial waste. As Cortés explained, "These first two acquisitions constitute an important strategic base for the collection and management of industrial and urban waste in the Valencia Region and in Castilla-La Mancha, two very economically active areas".

In November 2022, Paprec acquired the Centro del Tratamiento de Residuos del Mediterráneo (CTR), based in Castellón. The company specialises in the management of both hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste, and its varied solutions include the shredding of metal containers, the physicochemical treatment of contaminated water and the atomisation of non-hazardous and hazardous sludge from the ceramics industry.

Photo: GBi Serveis