REFLOW is an interdisciplinary cross-sectoral European Training Network combining world-leading scientists and key stakeholders in dairy processing, fertilizer production and phosphorous recycling with early-stage researchers (ESRs) to address important technical and socio-economic challenges associated with the recovery of phosphorous from dairy processing waste water and its recycling into fertilizer products enabling sustainable expansion of the dairy industry in Europe.
Phosphorous (P) is essential for life, however the industrialization of food production, in order to feed a rapidly expanding population, is giving rise to serious leakage of P throughout the global agricultural food system. The production of dairy products, such as cheese and yogurt, give rise to P-rich dairy processing waste (DPW) and phosphorous leakage from the dairy industry is causing environmental damage and putting public health at risk. As a whole, the dairy industry is the EU’s largest industrial food wastewater source and one of the main sources of P-rich industrial effluent. The abolition of EU milk quotas (2015) resulted in a subsequent 2.8% annual growth in milk production with a corresponding increase in DPW. If the way in which DPW is managed does not change, then the leakage of nutrients will continue to intensify, leading to environmental problems such as the eutrophication of water bodies by phosphorous run-off from soil.
A key component of both the EU Farm-to-Fork Strategy and Circular Economy Action Plan requires member states to develop “an Integrated Nutrient Management Plan (INMAP) to ensure more sustainable application of nutrients (NPK) and to stimulate the markets for recovered nutrients” for implementation. The key pillars of INMAP are
• Reducing nutrient loses (Farm-to-Fork) (by at least 50%, 2030)
• Nutrient recycling (Circular Economy) with key priority to monetize environmental and social benefit, (particular focus on wastewater treatment.
The overall REFLOW objectives are aligned with the EU strategies and are to:
1. Develop and demonstrate processes for the recovery and reuse of phosphorous (P) products from DPW;
2. Establish the fertilizer value and optimum application rates through laboratory protocols and field trials of the recovered phosphorous (P) products from DPW;
3. Address the environmental, social, food safety and economical challenges, ultimately finding market-driven solutions for the new processes and fertilizer products.
