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European Commission offers Circular Flows for Solid Waste in Urban Environment

Deadline: 30-Mar-22

The European Commission (EC) is offering Circular flows for solid waste in urban environment (Processes4Planet Partnership) (IA).

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), 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.
Funding Information
 
The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for: 
  • public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and 
  • cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).
Expected Outcomes
 
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 involving one of the local community actors.
Eligibility Criteria
 
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
  • eligible non-EU countries:

    • countries associated to Horizon Europe;
    • low- and middle-income countries.
For more information, visit European Commission.

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3ByYuLL