The hidden value of agrifood sector residues
Why
- The wheel to be reinvented. The agri-food context needs to evolve.
- 40% of food wasted is from fruit & vegetables sector.
- Inefficiencies and complexity of sorting and recycling of multilayer plastic films (MPF) make landfilling (34% of the total MPF waste) and incineration (66%) the only available option, to date.
- There’s a lack of an economic & environmentally sustainable value chain for the upcycling of F&V residues and multilayer plastic into high added value products.
- There’s a lack of demonstrated and replicable systemic solutions for the territorial deployment of the circular economy.
What
A2C is EU project boosting the upcycling of agri-food wastes (from F&V and MPF) through innovative routes of valorisation, leading to high extraction yields, bioactives with the purity and stability required to be used for the production of new food, cosmetic and nutraceutical formulation.
Paola Branduardi is leading the Workpackage dedicated to the upcycling of F&V and MPF, to the reuse of wastewater from fermentation processes, and to the formulation of new bioplastic compounds, including their performances and biodegradability
IndBiotech Lab is responsible of the activities for the upcycling of monomers deriving from the enzymatic degradation of PET into molecules that can be used in cosmetic formulations.
How
Our task is to give back value to waste biomass (i.e. lemon extract) and plastics (i.e. PET hydrolysate) working via yeast and bacteria fermentations, taking advantage from microbial biodiversity and further potentiating it by metabolic engineering approaches.
Who
Researchers involved in the project
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036838.
Find out more about the innovation routes developed by Agro2Circular
Infographic 1 🡪 Technologies for the recycling of organic agrifood waste
Infographic 2 🡪 Recycking and sorting of multilayer plastic residues
The whole process and products is traceable through an innovative ICT platform functioning as predictive tool for decision support (DIS – data integration system).
