Spain’s Humara builds advanced simulation and control software for the waste and recycling industry.
Its tools enable engineers and operators to design, optimise and manage facilities with real-time precision, reducing engineering times by 80% and improving operational efficiency. Customers include leading recyclers across Europe and Latin America.
In a sector under increasing pressure of regulation, carbon accounting and volatile markets, Humara is redefining how recycling and waste treatment facilities are designed and operated. Its simulation software brings together decades of engineering experience with the speed and precision of modern calculation, transforming the way plants are built, optimised and managed.
IN REAL TIME
‘We built Humara because the tools we had simply couldn’t capture reality,’ says Laura Rodríguez, co-founder and ceo. ‘Waste is not linear and our systems shouldn’t be either.’
Humara’s technology compresses complex engineering workflows that once took months into days. Its simulation engine executes more than 100 000 operations per second across 600+ parameters, modelling every element of a facility from material flows and equipment behaviour to operational scenarios in real time.
‘What once required teams of engineers iterating on static spreadsheets now happens dynamically with data-driven accuracy,’ says Rodríguez . She describes it as ‘digitising decades of plant-floor expertise into software that handles complexity that legacy CAD and Excel tools can’t touch’.
MADE BY ENGINEERS, FOR ENGINEERS
Headquartered in Spain’s northwestern province of Galicia, the company’s roots lie deep in the waste infrastructure world. After three decades designing and building facilities across Europe, the founding team hit a recurring barrier: outdated tools that forced slow, sequential processes. Spreadsheets couldn’t reflect how real plants behaved. So they built their own solution.
‘Every project was a battle between time, accuracy and reality,’ Rodríguez recalls. ‘We wanted to model facilities as they actually behave, not as simplified assumptions.’
Today, Humara’s platform is used by major industry players such as Veolia, PreZero, FCC, Stadler, Bianna and Ecoembes. What started as a response to frustration has become the foundation for the next generation of waste infrastructure.
DESIGN, OPERATE, OPTIMISE
Humara offers two complementary products that span the entire facility lifecycle.
Humara Design accelerates engineering cycles by up to 80%, turning four months of work into a few days. Engineers can test layout variations, equipment configurations and processing targets with full mass balance modelling. In 2025 alone, 233 plants were designed using the platform, saving 162 000 engineering hours and achieving up to 15% CapEx reductions through more precise equipment sizing.
The next step is Humara Operate. It enables real-time optimisation: fine-tuning parameters as conditions change. Early pilots show 4% material recovery improvements and 7% energy savings through continuous, data-driven control.
AI DRIVEN
Sitting on top of Operate is Duplantis, Humara’s AI co-pilot. ‘Operate lets you see and control the plant; Duplantis lets you talk to it,’ Rodríguez explains. ‘It reads every signal, cross-checks history and helps operators simulate before acting – learning from every shift while keeping humans in control.’
The waste and recycling sector is undergoing a fundamental shift from static design assumptions to real-time, data-driven process control. Digital twins, machine learning and advanced sensing technologies (like hyperspectral and X-ray sorting) are enabling plants to respond to material variability second by second.
Rodríguez sees integration as the key frontier: ‘Connecting sensors, process control and engineering models create facilities that improve continuously rather than degrade toward baseline performance. That’s the future of recycling.’
EXPANDING HORIZONS
Humara already operates across Germany, France, the UK and Latin America, with plans to enter North America in 2026. Its software is language-agnostic, database-driven and designed for both engineers and plant operators.
As Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations increase and sustainability metrics become the standard and mandatory, Humara is positioning itself as the optimisation layer for global waste infrastructure. The company’s technology is not just for new facilities – it’s equally transformative for the thousands of legacy plants that need to adapt to new performance requirements.
Rodríguez adds: ‘Every facility can become a continuously optimising system. Software can deliver what steel and concrete alone never could: adaptability.’
SURVIVAL TOOL
The stakes are high. Operators today face rising feedstock variability, stricter contamination limits, volatile energy costs and tougher compliance mandates – while having to maintain profitability. Manual operations and static configurations can no longer keep pace.
Rodríguez is clear-eyed about what’s next: ‘Technology adoption isn’t optional anymore – it’s survival. The facilities that master real-time adaptation will set the new standard for recycling performance. The rest will struggle to keep up.’
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