EU researchers are turning food processing waste into a valuable resource, transforming discarded biomaterials into natural fertilizers. In Catalonia there are 7.7 million residents and approximately 7.9 million pigs. That’s more than one pig per person.
Large-scale pig farming has led to an excess of nitrogen in the soil, a problem shared by many European regions. But just a few kilometers from Barcelona, a small revolution is turning this waste into a valuable resource. Instead of applying raw manure to fields, researchers are extracting the nitrogen from the locally produced agro-industrial waste and processing it as ammonium sulfate. This more stable and efficient fertilizer minimizes harmful runoff.
The researchers are part of a four-year EU-funded initiative called Waste4Soil. They are exploring innovative ways to convert food processing waste into locally produced soil improvers, addressing two major EU challenges at once: food waste and soil health. The Waste4Soil research team has set up Living Labs—real-life test environments—in seven European countries: Spain, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. The aim is to test out a range of innovative solutions for transforming waste from different agrifood sources into local, bio-based soil enhancers.
Source: Phys.org
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