Wageningen, The Netherlands – June 2024 – The ReLEAF project, a groundbreaking initiative under Horizon Europe, has officially commenced after an insightful and dynamic kick off meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Under the coordination of Leitat, ReLEAF gathered a consortium of 17 institutions from nine different European countries.
This ambitious project aims to transform waste streams into valuable bio-based fertilisers (BBFs), addressing critical environmental and economic challenges in the agriculture and waste management sectors across Europe.
Several studies have found that manure, sewage sludge, and food chain waste are the main sources of waste that can be turned into bio-based fertilizers (BBFs). Manure, the largest source, has over 70% of the nutrients needed for fertilization. Despite the success of many studies in valorising manure over the past decade, challenges remain due to pollutants like heavy metals (Zn and Cu) and volatile organic compounds. These pollutants limit manure’s suitability for centralised, high-quality fertiliser production.
The ReLEAF project is poised to tackle these challenges by advancing and demonstrating a suite of innovative extraction techniques. These techniques will focus on producing key BBF ingredients from diverse waste streams, including sewage sludge, fish processing waste and wastewater, mixed food waste, and agri-food residues.
To ensure the effectiveness and replicability of the BBFs, field demonstrations will be conducted at four sites with varying climate conditions and soil ecosystems. The project will also engage regional stakeholders through co-creation activities, fostering widespread acceptance and facilitating the rapid scale-up and industrialisation of the proposed technologies.
ReLEAF’s mission aims to expand the knowledge base of BBFs throughout Europe. The goal is to formulate, produce, and demonstrate the agronomic and environmental performance of safe, sustainable, and efficient BBFs. By optimising, integrating, testing, and validating innovative technologies, ReLEAF will efficiently recover and deliver agronomic added-value ingredients (nutrients and biostimulants) and other relevant products (biopolymers) from widely available bio-wastes. This approach will create new value chains and reduce the environmental impact associated with urban and agri-food wastes and the agriculture sector.
About ReLEAF Consortium
The ReLEAF Consortium is a collaborative initiative of leading European companies, technology developers, and research organizations committed to advancing sustainable agriculture and circular economy principles through the development of bio-based fertilizers.
For further information, please contact:
Xialei You Chen (xyou@leitat.org), Coodinator ReLEAF project.