PAPERCHAIN: New market niches for pulp and paper industry waste in the construction, mining and chemical sectors
The PAPERCHAIN project aimed to deploy five novel circular economy models centred around the waste streams generated by the Pulp and Paper Industry (PPI). These models used the waste streams as secondary raw material for certain resource-intensive sectors: the construction sector, the mining sector and the chemical industry.
Specifically, it sought to unlock the potential of a resource-efficient model based on industrial symbiosis which would demonstrate the potential of the major non-hazardous waste streams generated by the PPI (i.e. green liquor dregs, grits, lime mud, paper sludge fly ash, de-inking paper and fibre sludge) as valuable secondary raw materials.
This project produced five large-scale demonstrators in different operational environments: Construction in Portugal (asphalt mixtures and concrete in roads), Spain (stabilised-soil layers in roads) and Slovenia (composite materials for slide stabilization in railways); Chemical in Sweden (bio-ethanol for secondary chemicals); and Mining in Sweden (sealing layers for reactive spoil).