Our partner ITENE participated in the European Bioplastic event in Brussels, Belgium, on the 16th of October 2024. Miriam Lorenzo Navarro has presented the WASTE4SOIL platform/app. The farmers-to-farmers platform for industrial agro waste to turn food waste into sustainable soil improvers for better soil health and improved food systems.
The focus is on studying the valorization of eight Food Processing Residues (FPR) (e.g., meat, fish, dairy, cereals, olive oil, beverages (wine), fruits and vegetables, and processed food). Seven living labs are deployed in Europe: Each living lab installs and checks the project platform and app to put in contact with the food processing residues with the final end-users of soil improvers (SI).
This approach is circular, systemic, and multi-actor, and it is implemented at the regional level and involves all food chain actors, thereby closing specific loops (nutrients, organic matter, water). The app introduces data manually or uses sensors specifically developed for the project. In this way, the residues are tracked and transformed into soil improvers within each living lab.
The living labs have been set up in Greece, Finland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Italy, and Slovenia. Still, the developed methodology is meant to be spread to improve Food Processing Residues knowledge across Europe and transferred to other European regions.
