Unibio and various European-based partners, including the Municipality of Kalundborg, are launching the VALUEWASTE project to create biobased products out of urban waste streams. The aim of the project, which is financially supported by the EU under Horizon 2020, is to lay the foundation for a circular economy model that has the potential to be copied by many European municipalities in the years to come.
On average, each European citizen produces approximately 200 kg of municipal biowaste per year, representing between 118 and 138 million tonnes of biowaste annually. Many existing European municipal biowaste management systems represent one-way flow systems in which materials and resources are underused, limiting their potential recovery into high-value products. The VALUEWASTE project proposes an integrated approach to urban biowaste upcycling for the production of high-value biobased products, developing the first complete solution to fully valorize biowaste that can be replicated across Europe.
“Doing more with less is the way of the future,” stated Michael Jensen, Unibio CCO. “This project helps satisfying the needs of future generations as we are forced to rethink how feed, food, and energy are produced if we are to live on a 10-billion-people planet by 2030.”
The consortium will implement three new value chains that will use urban biowaste as raw material for its valorization into high-value end-products in a cascading process, generating economic, social and environmental benefits: food & feed proteins, other food & feed ingredients and biobased fertilizer.
The project will be developed at two different European locations -- Murcia in Spain and Kalundborg in Denmark -- with the purpose of finding a solution both technically and socially adapted to the different socioeconomic contexts existing across Europe. Social initiatives will be created to raise consumer awareness and acceptance of urban biowaste-derived products. End-user product applications and new market opportunities will be demonstrated.
Outcomes of the project will contribute to new standardization and will be useful information for EUpolicy makers in terms of waste management and in the adoption of new policies.
