Mafalda Lemos
ISWA Office Manager
Hello everyone! My name is Mafalda and I’ve been ISWA’s Office Manager since October 2024.
This week, our ISWA GS Team had the opportunity to join the HVC “Expedition Clean World” Tour in Alkmaar, the Netherlands. This tour has recently won the 2025 Communication Award from CEWEP for its creative and engaging communication.
HVC is a public energy and waste management company, founded in 1991. Currently, HVC represents 52 municipalities and 8 water boards.
Throughout the duration of this tour, we had the chance to learn, ask questions, and observe how this facility works.
We had the opportunity to see trucks delivering the waste into the facility’s bunkers and also take a look at how the machines operate the waste afterwards.
The whole tour was quite impressive, as this was my first time visiting a facility of this kind. The amount of waste present was also shocking, especially when we know that the majority of the waste taken to this facility isn’t actually what we usually consider “trash”.
In my opinion, this was the most impactful moment, as we could see right in front of us the amount of waste that was present, before it was taken to be incinerated (also inside the facility).
The expedition also had quite a lot of interactive bits, which made it even more interesting. In one of the sections, our team was asked some questions that challenged our knowledge of waste production.
I truly recommend, to those who are curious and interested in learning more about this topic and have the chance to go to Alkmaar, to pay a visit to this facility and book the tour in advance.
