Mercaoleo achieves the zero waste certificate in its olive oil packaging plants in Antequera

Mercaoleo SL, the oil bottling subsidiary of the Dcoop Group, has achieved, with the collaboration of Ecoterrae, the zero waste to landfill certificate awarded by the SGS certification body. In this way, the two bottling plants, Mercaoleo and Reina Sofía, are recognised with this prestigious certification and the Dcoop Group is making progress in its strategy to reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. This is a work philosophy that contributes to sustainable development through better organised waste management, in such a way that waste is reduced and prepared for reuse and/or transformation into raw materials, which in turn allows progress to be made in a circular economy model, to which the Dcoop Group is fully committed.

This achievement is part of the Group's sustainability strategy as an environmental objective for the year 2024, integrated with the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System, which is already implemented and certified at Mercaoleo. The objective is also to achieve it in the industrial centres of Villarrubia (almond processing) and Lebrija (goat cheese production).

Thus, during the year 2023, which was the period audited, the waste recovery ratio was 92.05%, i.e. almost all the waste generated in these two industrial plants was reused, recycled or recovered, avoiding landfill. In detail, 176 tonnes of paper and cardboard, 58 tonnes of glass, 74 tonnes of plastic, seven tonnes of wood and three tonnes of metals were recovered.

This certification recognises organisations that are committed to sustainability as a strategic framework for the development of their activity and that recover the different fractions of waste they generate, within the defined scope, preventing them from being disposed of in landfill.

The presentation took place at the Mercaoleo facilities in Antequera. Javier Postigo Moya, Ecoterrae's technical consultant, and Marta Sánchez Méndez, SGS's main auditor, were in charge of awarding the accreditation to José Luis Gámez and Marta Salido, Mercaoleo's Quality technicians.