CIRCULAR BIOCARBON

Summary

While there have been huge advances in waste recycling over recent decades, there still remains room for improvement; some waste is not used as efficiently as it could be. Municipal solid waste in particular tends to be incinerated or sent to landfill despite retaining a large organic fraction which, if recovered, has inherent value as a resource as well as aligning better with Europe’s ambitions for a circular economy. This can be done using a biorefinery.

The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project will develop a first-of-its-kind flagship biorefinery to valorise the organic fraction of municipal solid waste into four value-added products and a range of other intermediate products. It will do this through a biorefinery, organised through a pool of cascading technologies. This will treat mixed urban waste streams, including the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge, in order to demonstrate that the process is capable of handling all the biowaste produced by a medium-sized city.

The fundamental objective of the CIRCULAR BIOCARBON biorefinery is to open up new business frameworks based on an innovative circular approach to waste treatment in a city setting. It will work to attract the relevant actors needed to maximise the impact of the outputs on the market. In order to maximise replicability and boost potential penetration in the market, the biorefinery will be operated in Spain and Italy simultaneously for three years, and consistent business and exploitation strategies will be put in place.