The children’s playground on the provincial road in Cassà de la Selva has become the first in Spain to be paved with cork stoppers collected through the town’s recycling campaign, part of the FUTURECORK project led by the Catalan Cork Institute Foundation.
The initial results of the pilot cork stopper collection trial in the towns of Cassà de la Selva and Palafrugell are already yielding tangible benefits.
Thanks to the stoppers recovered from local businesses in Cassà de la Selva, in the Gironès region, it has been possible to pave the playground located at the entrance to the town, next to the provincial road—completing a local cycle of collection, recycling, and reuse with a direct benefit for the community.
The cork stoppers, which have been collected since November in both towns, are being used as a test case to evaluate a selective collection system for cork stoppers.
The pilot initiative was initially launched with 36 collection points in Palafrugell and 23 in Cassà de la Selva—including supermarkets, restaurants, specialist shops, retailers, and educational centres—where residents could deposit used cork stoppers in clearly marked containers. Given the positive response and the engagement of the local commercial and social fabric, the project has gradually expanded to include other establishments and towns interested in joining the initiative.
The results achieved so far are very encouraging:
- Palafrugell: 46,749 cork stoppers collected (256.05 kg)
- Cassà de la Selva: 15,464 cork stoppers collected (84.95 kg)
This cork collection and recovery initiative will continue throughout the year and conclude with the publication of a technical and economic report summarising the findings of the experience. The goal is to propose a replicable model for the integrated management of cork stoppers at national level.
FUTURECORK is a transformative project aimed at promoting the bioeconomy within the cork sector. It is supported by the Fundación Biodiversidad of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), as part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
