MOEBIOS challenges the state of the art of the recycling of bioplastics in three central value chains, specially selected due to their market share and their environmental impact:
• Plastic packaging, as it represents 39.5% of all plastics conversion in the EU27+3, and 33.5% of plastics consumption, while just 6.3% of recycled content rate is present in packaging in the EU. Bioplastics have been traditionally collected with conventional packaging, and waste management plants unable to make an appropriate sorting. For those that are starting to be collected separately, industrial biodegradation processes are not optimized for current processing.The Plastic Packaging Waste Regulation will stablish that recyclable Bioplastics must not disrupt existing recycling schemes. Furthermore, there is no technology in place to generate food grades from recycled bioplastics, in accordance With the EFSA
• Synthetic textiles, as they affect the environment and climate throughout their life cycle. At a global level, their production consumes ~ 1 % of crude oil production (48 Mt/year), and is expected to increase, encouraged by unsustainable practices such as fast fashion. EU consumers discard about 11 kg textiles per person annually (5.8 Mt), of which roughly two thirds are synthetic. 92 Mt of textiles were discarded globally every year, which accounts for 13 % of all plastic waste (the 3rd largest), where just about 0.33 Mt are from biopolymers. Globally, it is estimated that only 0.06 % of all textile waste (typically cotton-rich products) is recycled into fibres for use in new textile products. Recycling of synthetic fibres is not observed at scale. In the EU alone, about 5.8 Mt of textile waste is thrown away every year. Between 200 000 and 500 000 tonnes of microplastic fibres from textiles enter the marine environment each year.
• Plastic waste from agriculture. BIoplastics are currently disposed in landfills due to deficient management practices, misinformation, and lack of infrastructure. This waste harms soil quality, spread microplastics in the environment and affect plants performance and root development, and many other harmful effects (EIP AGRI). However, the use of biobased plastics in agriculture is just 8% while recycled plastic content in agriculture applications is less than 22%.
The overall objective of MOEBIOS is to demonstrate novel recycling processes for bioplastics (BPs) towards new upcycled, high value-added end-products. This way, MoeBIOS will develop three value chains incorporating separate recycling streams for BP. It is a systemic innovation: it will create linkages between the different key stages of the whole chains to solve a hierarchical challenge, from the collection of the bioplastic waste, up to the upcycling and validation of the final recycled end-products (holistic and coordinated solution).
The new value chain will imply sorting, conditioning and valorising three types of waste streams from the packaging, agriculture and textile industries into three end-products, targeting to reach at least the same quality and functionality than the original grades, while the end users’ acceptance will be assessed as well.
Each defined value chain will be lead by an expert RTO and as cornerstone targets for maximizing project’s impact, the processes will be developed in two stages aimed to (1) low TRLs to (2)increase progresively to higher TRLs. The upscaling of the recycling processes will: (1) be integrated in pilot plants on the premises of actual industrial recycling lines currently operating in waste management companies, not disrupting them, and reaching a final TRL = 6/7 or even beyond. (2) focus on bioplastics for which recycling processes are still not in place, excluding bio-based analogues (“drop-ins”), accordingly with the market.
A Multi-Actor Approach (MAA) and a transdisciplinary methodology will engage waste producers, waste managers, bio-based and (bio)plastics industry, public authorities, standardization agencies, citizens and media multipliers, creating a co-creation and co-ownership innovation environment of + 50 participants
