Circular flows for solid waste in urban environment (Processes4Planet Partnership) (IA) -

Expected Outcome

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Deploy the concept of Industrial-Urban Symbiosis (I-US) on a real scale demonstrator, making the flow of solid waste circular in process, manufacturing and/or construction industries;
• Reduce 80 % (in weight or volume) solid waste generated in comparison to current state-of-the art, by re-using, valorising and transforming waste, by-products and side-streams into new/secondary resources of raw materials;
• Plan actions (e.g. awareness of circularity potential) to overcome non-technological barriers for exploitation (i.e. waste regulations, standardisation, confidentiality and compliance, ownership, fair sharing of benefits, acceptance of the concept);
• Develop knowledge sharing: know-how, advantages, challenges and recommendations on technological and non-technological aspects (e.g. job profile optimisation) with the European Community of Practice (ECoP) and other relevant bodies, disseminating the major innovation outcomes to support the implementation of I-US;
• Explore and illustrate replication potential in other regions (e.g. by setting up a network amongst waste associations to optimise flow of secondary raw materials);
• Implement actions to facilitate relations and to involve the local community actors (authorities, associations, civil society, relevant businesses, especially SMEs, educational organisations, etc.), e.g. exchanging knowledge, training, human capital, contributing to the optimisation of job profiles and sharing with the local educational establishments and with the ECoP;
• Implement a social innovation spin-off action[1] involving one of the local community actors.

Relevant indicators and metrics, with baseline values, should be clearly stated in the proposal.

Scope

Hubs for circularity for solid waste in urban environment tackles a fundamental issue of end of life materials representing a huge amount and broad range of solid wastes. Solid waste are intended here as process industry, manufacturing industry, construction industry waste and solid urban waste (consumer waste, End-of-Life waste). Solid waste in general is one of the biggest waste streams in Europe, accounting for more than 30% of all waste generated in the EU (Dec.2019 data)[2], re-using and re-cycling most of that could cut significantly the emissions caused by the mining and manufacturing needed to produce those materials in the first place and as such represents an important decarbonisation potential. There is a need of innovative solution engaging waste management actors in novel value chains to valorise a significant part of those wastes, bringing full attention to upcycling back to secondary materials instead of down cycling of low re-use.

Projects are expected to address:

• Management and processing of waste streams through e.g. collection, disassembly, sorting, purification, refining, concentration, processing (e.g. thermal, mechanical), recycling technologies (especially chemical recycling), exchanging or preparation, for the valorisation of waste to be used as feedstock for other plants and companies across sectors and/or across value chains;
• Process (re-)design and adaptation to build a new circular value chain including energy, water and material flow, infrastructure and logistics;
• Investigate the availability and distribution of “waste” resources and logistic to ensure proper input of the specified material of the right quality and quantity to feed the new process in time;
• Integration of novel sensing technology, IoT and digital tools for the classification and sorting of solid waste streams to enable their efficient utilisation with as little downgrading as possible;
• New approach to end-of life materials removing the usual barriers of exploitation, enabling novel symbiotic interactions; unification of administration procedures, data sharing and preservation of data confidentiality;
• Define assessment methodologies and evaluate KPIs to measure the performance of symbiosis (SRL) and including environmental, economic and social impacts; ;
• Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis should take into account existing sustainability standards (e.g. ISO 14000) and existing best practices;
• Assessment of the economic, circularity and climate benefits;
• Study social aspects of the community and its improvement through I-US where demonstration is located, whilst also considering a gender and inclusiveness perspective;
• Create societal awareness through a participative approach locally and more broadly, highlighting and communicating political and regulatory obstacle between regions/countries.
• Connect to the ECoP for knowledge sharing: know-how, challenges and recommendations on technological and non-technological aspects;

Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination. Interoperability for data sharing should be addressed.

Clustering and cooperation with other selected projects under this call and others in Horizon Europe, with European initiatives (as for example: Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) and European Circular Economy Stakeholder Panel (ECESP)), as well as building on existing projects,[3] are strongly encouraged; see also Industrial Symbiosis Report of March 2020[4].

This topic implements the co-programmed European partnership Processes4Planet.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement

Activities are expected to start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Digital AgendaArtificial IntelligenceSocial sciences and humanitiesCo-programmed European Partnerships

[1]A social innovation spin-off action may not necessarily encompass a commercial activity.

[2]https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/index.htm

[3]e.g. Sharebox, Scaler, CIRCLEAN network, JRC EIGL, etc.

[4]Study and Portfolio Review of Cluster of Projects on Industrial Symbiosis

https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/f26dfd11-6288-11ea-b735-01aa75ed71a1

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