The EU’s fishing industry produces 2.5 million tonnes of waste per year that could be converted into biofertilizers

Every year the global fisheries industry generates more than 20 million tonnes of by-products, most of which are squandered. This means that after the catches have been processed, 25% of the total ends up being discarded as waste, which especially includes fish species which they were not trying to catch or other remains from industrial fish processing. In the European Union, this waste accounts for a total of 5.2 million tonnes per year. The project entitled “Producing Advanced Bio-based Fertilizers from Fisheries Wastes (SEA2LAND)”, in which the BETA Technology Centre of the Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya (UVic-UCC) is participating, will rise to this challenge by improving and adapting technologies to recover nutrients in order to use them to produce biofertilizer using by-products from fish processing and aquaculture.

Marine by-products are usually discarded and underused because it is often forgotten that their composition can contain up to 9% nitrogen (depending on the species), 2% phosphorous and 0.6% potassium. It is believed that of the 5.2 million tonnes of waste coming from the European fisheries and aquaculture industry, around 0.52 million tonnes of nitrogen could be recovered and used for agricultural production, and 0.1 million tonnes of phosphorous could also have another use. If they are recovered, these amounts of nutrients could fertilize 4.3 million hectares and 1.5 million hectares, respectively.

A circular economy model

The overarching goal of the SEA2LAND project, which is financed by the European H2020 programme with a total budget of 8,853,401.54 euros, is to provide solutions to help overcome the challenges related to agricultural systems, climate change and waste reuse. This project, which is based on a circular economy model, will encourage the large-scale production of fertilizers in the EU using its own raw materials by transforming by-products into optimal nutrients for certain crops in local conditions or that are suitable for export. SEA2LAND will contribute to the independence and safety of European agriculture’s nutrient supply and lower the nutrient imbalance in Europe.

The biofertilizers produced are guaranteed to comply with EU regulations, including those on ecological agriculture. Furthermore, the effects on biodiversity and environmental sustainability and the impact on social parameters and local economies will be studied, and business plans to produce these fertilizers will be defined. The resulting by-products, coming from both fish processing and aquaculture, could partially replace the nutrients imported for European farming, thus also contributing to lowering the negative environmental effects of their current underuse.

Pilot on sludge treatment in Malta

As part of the SEA2LAND project, the BETA Technology Centre of the Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya (UVic-UCC) is primarily responsible for evaluating different technologies to produce biofertilizers using by-products from the aquaculture industry in the case studies being conducted in the North Sea, Atlantic and Mediterranean regions. The CT BETA working team participating in the project includes Lidia Paredes as the lead research and project leader, in addition to the researchers Nagore Guerra, Laia Llenas and Sergio Ponsá. The importance of CT BETA’s contribution lies in “being able to implement, evaluate and demonstrate that a given number of innovative methodologies will enable nutrients to be recovered in order to produce biofertilizers”, says Parades. Thus, “the products yielded will be used to replace certain inorganic nutrients which are currently being used in Europe”.

Specifically, CT BETA is leading the pilot in the Mediterranean region focusing on treating the sludge produced in different aquaculture facilities on Malta which belong to the AquaBioTech Group. It will also validate the treatment process to evaluate the slurry produced in a freshwater aquaculture industry located in Spain (Caviar Pirinea SL).

The first 2 years of the project will be spent implementing and optimising the different technologies at CT BETA facilities. “The first year will be spent designing and assembling pilot plants, while in the second we will begin to optimise the processes in order to maximise the quantity and quality of the biofertilizers”, says Parades. She also says that one of the main strengths that CT BETA brings to the project is “validating that existing technologies meant for other applications can also be effective in making biofertilizers; that is, scaling technologies from a pilot level to an industrial demonstration under real conditions”.

In this sense, once the process has been validated while operating under optimal conditions, the technologies will be transferred to the facilities of the company Caviar Pirinea SL in order to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed treatment system in a real environment. The case study developed by CT BETA, in which the company Fertinagro (a leading supplier of agricultural fertilizers in Spain) is also participating, will make it possible to produce 4 fertilizer products with a high agronomic value to be used in agriculture, as well as to recover high-quality energy and water.

Four years and 25 partners from 8 countries

The SEA2LAND project has begun in January 2021 and will conclude on 31 December 2024. It is being coordinated by NEIKER-Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development and has a total of 25 partners from 8 EU countries (Spain, France, Estonia, Italy, Malta, Croatia, Portugal and Belgium), along with Switzerland, Norway and Chile. The project sets out to implement 9 technologies which will be validated in 7 case studies conducted in 6 representative areas in the fisheries sector (North Sea, Baltic Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Cantabrian Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Adriatic Sea).

This is not the first project in which CT BETA is involved to examine the production of biofertilizers using organic waste. Since January 2020, the centre has also been the coordinator of the FERTIMANURE project, another H2020 project geared at producing biofertilizers using livestock manure and generating business models that make them competitive in the European market. It is also participating in projects like REFLOW, which is working to valorise phosphorous in waste from the dairy sector, and ACCELWATER, which focuses on strategies to valorise waste from the meat industry.