Recovering landfill waste through an innovative and integrated process committed to the circular economy

ongoing

Transition to a more circular economy requires changes throughout value chains, waste management playing a central role: it determines how the EU waste hierarchy is put into practice. Despite increasing attention on prevention and sustainability, total municipal solid waste (MSW) generation has increased dramatically in the last years, having an intrinsic environmental and an economic problem; Europe loses today around 600 Mt of waste materials that could potentially be recycled or reused. The LIFE ZEROLANDFILLING project aims to tackle this environmental and economic problem by demonstrating for the first time the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of an innovative, advanced and integrated management system, through a pilot plant, as a solution to treat and revalorise non-recyclable MSW (mainly composed of non-recyclable plastics and bio-waste) that normally reaches landfill. Remarkably, such non-recyclable MSW will be revalorised in products (green naphtha and solid charcoal) with commercial interest. In the frame of the project, 2,112 t of non-recyclable MSW will be treated, avoiding 2,069.76 tCO2e associated to their landfilling; moreover, this revalorization will be translated in the production of 458 t of green naphtha and 583 t of solid charcoal, which in comparison with the conventional competitors, will avoid the generation of 918.56 and 1,700.26 tCO2e, respectively. Additionally, the project will pave the way towards a wide replication and close-to-market deployment, allowing a reduction in MSW of 160,000 t/y and the avoidance of 355,222.65 tCO2e/y in 3 years, and fostering the deployment of a new circular economy concept and consolidate the solid positioning and robustness of the European Waste treatment sector. LIFE ZEROLANDFILLING will thus offer a sustainable and competitive zero-landfill solution, with a low carbon footprint and a circular economy approach, which will have a strong impact on Europe's environmental and economic future.