A BETA Technology Centre project will evaluate solid and liquid waste from the meat industry

According to the Catalonia Waste Agency (ARC), 911,480 tonnes of waste was generated by the food industry in Catalonia in 2018. One of the challenges facing the sector is how to optimise the management of the waste it generates and lower the economic and environmental cost this entails by minimising its transport and obtaining by-products with high added value. This is precisely the goal of the research project ACCELWATER (Accelerating Water Circularity in Food and Beverage Industrial Areas around Europe), financed as part of the European Horizon 2020 project, in which the BETA Technology Centre (CT BETA) of the Universitat de Vic – Universitat Central de Catalunya (UVic-UCC) is participating. The project seeks the twofold objectives of optimising water consumption in the food industry and reconverting waste into fertilisers and energy.

ACCELWATER is upheld on four cornerstones: water, waste, energy and artificial intelligence. Through a combination of these four factors, the project seeks to treat both the liquid and solid waste generated in the food sector so they can be reclaimed and can be used for new purposes. By implementing monitoring and control technologies made possible by artificial intelligence, the researchers will both reuse the water and recover, optimise and manage the waste and energy. Lídia Paredes, a researcher at the CT BETA who is coordinating the project in Catalonia, alongside Oscar Mauricio Martínez from the same centre, summarises it as “a process which translates into cost-savings, environmental sustainability and obtaining added-value products”. According to Paredes, who is in charge of the research line focused on liquid waste, “we are trying to close the waste management circle within the company and keep the waste from being transferred elsewhere for treatment”.

The project is being led by the Greek company AGENSO (Agricultural and Environmental Solutions) and has a total of 18 partners, including universities; small, medium and large companies; research centres; and public administrations in Greece, Iceland, Italy, Germany and Spain. A total of four pilot tests will be conducted: the one in Catalonia coordinated by CT BETA and three more in Greece, focused on industrial symbiosis in the beer, dairy and food processing sectors; Iceland, where the project revolves around the fish farming sector; and Italy, where it focuses on tomato processing.

Reducing and reclaiming waste from the meat industry

The pilot test in Catalonia will focus on the meat sector and will be carried out at the MAFRICA slaughterhouse in de Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, which is also a partner in the project along with INNOVACC, Catalan Association of Innovation in the Pork Sector, which will coordinate the communication and boost the project’s impact. The installation that CT BETA will put into place in MAFRICA seeks to find a use for the solid and liquid waste that the company generates in its industrial process. This is why one solid and one liquid waste treatment line will be established, each independent of the other but working in coordination with each other. The goal will be to find a solution to the failure to reclaim this waste and to purify the water autonomously, in-company. Indeed, Paredes says that “this company currently does the initial purification of the water generated, and afterwards the outgoing effluents are treated in the Manresa water purification plant”. Thanks to the implementation of ACCELWATER, one of the outlets of this water will be to reuse it for tasks like cleaning the lorries that transport the livestock.

Another of the project’s challenges is to reconvert solid waste into products with added value. Specifically, energy recovered from the waste that MAFRICA generates will be used in the industry itself, as well as products with agronomic value like organic remains that are rich in nutrients and biostimulants. “We are hoping that the fertilising products obtained from ACCELWATER can be of commercial interest and value, which will allow MAFRICA to reclaim waste that is managed wholly externally right now, at a high cost to the company”, says Oscar Mauricio Martínez, the head of the solid waste line.

Four years of the project and more than one million euros for the Catalan test

The programme will last four years. In the Catalan test, 2021 will be spent designing and building the pilot, which should be ready for installation in MAFRICA by the end of the year, where it will remain in operation until the end of 2024. Once the pilot test is over, “we will have gained valuable data on its efficacy, which will enable companies in the meat sector to evaluate its benefits in terms of sustainability and learn what it would cost to permanently implement a waste management system like the one in the pilot test”, says Oscar Martínez.

Martínez also stresses the exclusivity of the project and says that “it is the only initiative in Catalonia and one of just a handful in the field of waste management in the meat industry being carried out in Europe”.

The total financing of ACCELWATER is almost 9.5 million euros, more than 1,200,000 of which is earmarked for the activities to be conducted in Catalonia. The project was launched on 1 October of this year, and this past Thursday, 12 November, the launch meeting was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the BETA Technology Centre
The mission of the UVic-UCC’s BETA Technology Centre is to improve and promote the competitiveness and technological capacities of companies, public organisations and other entities through collaborative RDI projects. Its main fields of expertise are green technologies, ecology and biodiversity, the agrofood industries and sustainability. The CT BETA is a member of TECNIO, the network promoted and backed by the government of Catalonia which encompasses outstanding tech centres in Catalonia with high quality standards (in terms of the development and transfer of technologies and the capacity for innovation).