Waste4Soil Project

Waste4Soil Project envisions the development of 10 technological and methodological solutions for recycling food processing residues from the food industry into local, bio-based circular soil improvers for improved soil health. A user-driven standardised Evaluation Framework will support stakeholders from the food value chain, including waste managers, to assess their status towards food processing residues circularity and act for recycling suitable waste streams into beneficial soil improvers. To ensure co-innovation and collaborative research, Waste4Soil will set up 7 Soil Health Living Labs across Europe, in Greece, Finland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia, to study the valorisation of 8 types of food processing residues (i.e., meat, fish, dairy, cereals, olive oil, beverages (wine), fruits and vegetables, and processed food). The project focuses on assessing and improving the effectiveness of existing routes of food waste management to soil improver components, formulation and application methods by focusing on: 1) Anaerobic digestion residues by employing novel nutrient separation including Selective Electrodialysis, bio-electrochemical and membrane systems 2) Novel efficient Biochar production from food processing wastes and digestates 3) Bio-Phosphate processing 4) Effective composting process of solid residues 5) Protein hydrolysates acting as soil improvers and AD-Microalgae combined processes for soil biostimulants and 6) An enabling management platform applied in all living labs, with a growing database of data analytics, route optimisation applications, soil health evaluations and application recipes, commercial aspects, and the capacity to use IoT devices in logistics. The 27 partners and 1 associated partner supporting this project proposal are forming a transdisciplinary partnership across 10 European countries.