REDOL: Aragons REgional Hub for circularity: Demonstration Of Local industrial-urban symbiosis initiatives

This project, to be implemented in Zaragoza, seeks to promote the circular economy in cities by redesigning five urban solid waste value chains.

Context

In the European Union (EU), 225.7 million tonnes of municipal waste were generated in 2020, an increase of 1% over 2019, according to Eurostat data. Of this amount, 67 million tonnes were recycled and 40 million tonnes (90kg per person) were composted. However, despite the progress in waste recovery, waste management remains a major challenge to meet EU targets for the next decade, which set a recycling target of 65% by 2035.

Against this backdrop, REDOL is designed to transform cities into circularity hubs that implement zero waste strategies and foster industrial-urban symbiosis (I-US) approaches between local and regional actors.

Summary and objectives 

REDOL aims to promote the circular economy in cities by transforming them into circularity poles that implement “zero waste” strategies while fostering industrial-urban symbiosis approaches between local and regional actors. To this end, it will be implemented in Zaragoza. At the end of the project, the urban-industrial symbiosis developed in Zaragoza will also be replicated in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Prato (Italy) and Bornholm (Denmark).

Specifically, the project will redesign five municipal solid waste (MSW) value chains (packaging, plastics, CDW, textiles and waste electrical and electronic equipment).

In addition, new solutions will be implemented to:

improve management technologies for collecting, sorting and classifying municipal solid waste
improve the processing routes for sorted materials to avoid landfilling
optimise value chains and interaction between key actors through state-of-the-art digital tools

REDOL will also provide guidelines and recommendations for key decision-makers and work to improve citizen participation in separate collection systems.

REDOL aims to support Zaragoza’s transition to a zero waste city. By the end of REDOL, the urban-industrial symbiosis developed in Zaragoza should also be replicated in Amsterdam (Netherlands), Prato (Italy) and Bornholm (Denmark).

Consortium

The REDONDO consortium is formed by 36 organisations from 12 European countries, including universities, research centres, companies and administrations:

FUNDACIÓN CIRCE CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE RECURSOS Y CONSUMOS ENERGÉTICOS (Coordinador) (Spain).
FUNDACIÓN AITIIP (Spain).
ASOCIACIÓN DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE LA INDUSTRIA TEXTIL (AITEX) (Spain).
EREVNITIKO PANEPISTIMIAKO INSTITOUTO SYSTIMATON EPIKOINONION KAI YPOLGISTON-EMP (Greece).
INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO DEL EMBALAJE, TRANSPORTE Y LOGÍSTICA (ITENE) (Spain).
INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO DE ARAGÓN (ITAINNOVA) (Spain).
UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA (Spain).
NEXT TECHNOLOGY TECNOTESSILE SOCIETA NAZIONALE DI RICERCA R L (Italy).
LULEA TEKNISKA UNIVERSITET (Sweden).
VDZ TECHNOLOGY GGMBH (Germany).
STICHTING AMSTERDAM INSTITUTE FORADVANCED METROPOLITAN SOLUTIONS(AMS) (Netherlands).
TATUINE MEDIOAMBIENTE SOCIEDAD LIMITADA (Spain).
CASALE GESTION DE RESIDUOS SL (Spain).
IRIS TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS, SOCIEDAD LIMITADA (Spain).
BRILEN TECH SA (Spain).
SUITE5 DATA INTELLIGENCE SOLUTIONS LIMITED (Cyprus).
NUEVAS TECNOLOGÍAS PARA EL DESARROLLO DE PACKAGING Y PRODUCTOS AGROALIMENTARIOS CON COMPONENTE PLÁSTICA SL (Spain).
STRANE INNOVATION (France).
GEONARDO ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES LTD (Hungary).
RINA CONSULTING – CENTRO SVILUPPO MATERIALI SPA (Italy).
ACTECO PRODUCTOS Y SERVICIOS SL (Spain).
AMB ELECTRONICA BRESCIA SL (España).
SAICA NATUR SL (Spain).
ACCIONA CONSTRUCCIÓN SA (Spain).
CEMEX ESPANA OPERACIONES SL (Spain).
FINANCIERA MADERERA SA (Spain).
ICLEI EUROPEAN SECRETARIAT GMBH (ICLEI EUROPASEKRETARIAT GMBH) (Germany).
ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES ASBL (Belgium)
AYUNTAMIENTO DE ZARAGOZA (Spain).
COMUNE DI PRATO (Italy).
ALIA SERVIZI AMBIENTALI S.P.A. (Italy).
BORNHOLMS REGIONSKOMMUNE (Denmark)
CONSORCIO DE LA AGRUPACION N1 PARA LA GESTIÓN DE RESIDUOS SÓLIDOS URBANOS DE HUESCA (Spain).
CEMEX INNOVATION HOLDING AG (Switzerland).

ITENE’s role

In REDOL, ITENE will lead the design, testing and validation of innovative solutions for the recycling and valorisation of waste streams under controlled conditions with a view to their inclusion in circular and symbiotic value chains.

In particular, it will carry out the development and optimisation of selective dissolution for the delamination of multilayer packaging to recover the main layers of the structure, such as PET and OPs. It will also analyse waste pre-treatment needs and characterise representative samples.

The research centre will work on the separation of each recovered fraction and carry out its recycling.