BIC and Zero Waste Europe to issue a report on biowaste generation in the EU

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Type of post: NEWS.

The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) has teamed up with Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) to produce a report identifying the untapped potential to valorise biowaste (garden and food waste) in Europe.
Press release: “Tackling Europe’s food waste problem –  bio-based industries offer innovative solutions”, 15/6/2020.
A summary of the report “Bio-waste generation in the EU: Current capture levels and future potential” is now available here. The full report will be made available to the public on 6 July 2020.

Figure 1. Comparison theoretical potential / currently collected of food waste and bio-waste (taken from the press release)

There are two major types of biowaste: garden and food waste as defined in EU regulations (the revised Waste Framework Directive). This report focuses on food waste in particular, although calculations also cover biowaste as a whole.

Summary of the content

- Chapter 1: Outlining of the EU policy drivers for the management of biowaste. One of which will be the new Waste Framework Directive (WFD), which mandates biowaste collection from 1 January 2024 onwards.

- Chapter 2: Methodology. The report builds on public information and national data from the 27 Member States + UK and Norway (EU27+) for bio-waste generation, making a number of assumptions on how to calculate the current capture of bio-waste and the theoretical potential.

- Chapter 3: Results. In the EU27+, current capture of food waste is 9,520,091 tons per year, just 16% of the theoretical potential, estimated at 59,938,718 tons (see Figure 1). The report defines a target capture level, the “operational potential”, of around 85% of the theoretical potential, so as to calculate how much food waste, currently left in mixed waste, may actually be still recovered.

- Chapter 4: Best practices in biowaste management. This includes the cases of Milan, Catalonia and some municipalities in France. BBI JU funded projects are also included as examples of best practices for sustainably valorising biowaste to provide new biobased compounds for the chemicals, food-packaging and agricultural sectors.

- Country factsheets. They provide calculations for various countries, and other specific information that is relevant to biowaste management strategies and perspectives in that specific country.

Statements

“The bio-based sector is already valorising bio-waste in smart and efficient processes with zero-waste objectives. Several projects funded by the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) demonstrate how innovation in our sector can convert bio-waste into high-value bio-based products.” says Dirk Carrez, BIC Executive Director. “The bio-based industries seek to achieve a resource-efficient and zero-waste society as identified in our Vision. The planned EU public-private partnership – Circular bio-based Europe – will help further realise this” he added.

“The report shows that biowaste management remains an untapped potential for the European Union to further transition to a Circular Economy. Only 16% of the potential is currently captured and, through proper initiatives, this number could be multiplied by 5 so as to reach 85%. This shows the need for the EU and Members States to maintain and strengthen their effort in biowaste collection and treatment as key steps towards soil regeneration, circularity and climate neutrality” added Pierre Condamine, Waste Policy Officer at Zero Waste Europe.

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