Xavier Mallafré
Co-Owner of Thermowaste ,
Europe
Every year, the world gets a little trashier.
According to a World Bank report, the planet produces 2.01 billion tons of waste in each year — with at least 33% not managed in an environmentally safe manner.
Much of this garbage ends up in landfills, accelerating the pace of climate change and contaminating the surrounding soil and water.
But Xavier Mallafré, Co-Owner of Thermowaste, has a sustainable and definitive solution with the development of a biotechnology that will replace landfills around the world with emission-neutral waste treatment plants.
“Our impact is directly related to the tons of waste recovered and transformed into clean materials with market value, making possible a circular economy model,” he says.
Mallafré and his company are turning trash into treasures. Thermowaste converts solid waste into clean materials and recovers them in their entirety so they may be used a second time while providing work to many families. Garden stones, transformed from plastic waste, is a product that is already on the market as a substitute for stones for decoration.
One single Thermowaste processing line can recover 80,000 tons of trash per year, which represents the amount of waste generated by approximately 200,000 inhabitants. The facilities are designed to work 24 hours a day, a minimum of 8,000 hours per year.
The Thermowaste solution also eliminates all pathogens contained in the garbage, including the coronavirus, HIV and salmonella. Without destroying the materials that make up the garbage, this solution eliminates viruses and bacteria by exposing it to more demanding conditions than those recommended by the World Health Organization.
In 2022, the company won a Quality Innovation Award in the category of Circular Economy and Carbon Neutrality Innovations.
Mallafré is also the founder and owner of Espurna, Nec&Otium, an investment and development firm for media and cultural businesses. He started Espurna in 2014 after 25 years of working at multinational companies such as Arthur Andersen, Grupo Planeta and Grupo 62.