AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, coordinates a new European project ELLIPSE to valorize two heterogeneous waste streams generated in significant amounts in Europe - slaughterhouse waste (bellygrass or rumen content) and paper and pulp sludge - to produce cost-efficient polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) for agricultural and personal care applications, by the coprocessing with other organic wastes (OW), such as sludge from the dairy industry and glycerol from the biodiesel industry, as well as recovering nutrients to produce bio-based fertilizers (BBFs).

The integration of these waste streams as biorefinery feedstocks will allow reducing the volumes of landfilled waste, opening new avenues for platform chemicals and bioplastics production, while creating additional revenue for the related industries generating them, with added advantages - water recycling, decreased soil degradation, groundwater pollution and methane emissions.

The ELLIPSE project kick-off meeting took place on 17 and 18 May to show the different activities to be performed during the project timeframe. This 2-year research is funded by the European Union under the Circular Bio-based Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) call HORIZON-JU-CBE-2022-IA-04.

The ELLIPSE project will be able to cope with at least 100 tonnes of slaughterhouse waste and 20 tons of wastewater sludge derived from pulp and paper industry. The technology will impact the European bioeconomy by valorizing 20,000 tons of rumen content waste and 50,000 tons of paper sludge per year.