MoeBIOS

MOEBIOS’ general objective is to establish new recycling processes for bioplastics, resulting in new upcycled and high-value-added products. Key objectives include:

• Integrating recycling processes into existing industrial lines.
• Focusing on bioplastics for which recycling processes are still not in place, excluding bio-based analogues.
• Advancing mechanical waste recycling systems for bioplastics.
• Developing improved enzymatic systems degrading bioplastics as the basis for subsequent bio-recycling.
• Optimising chemical waste recycling systems for bioplastics.  
• Developing new scaled-up recycling routes for bioplastic waste streams under the premises of real waste management plants.
• Upcycling the obtained materials through the recycling processes to produce three final demonstrators: packaging, textile, and agricultural and gardening applications.
• Developing a thermo-chemical recycling method for obtaining syngas from the bioplastic waste streams that cannot be valorised through any of the previous methods.
• Developing a decision support system for waste managers on the recycling strategy to be followed for bioplastics contained in each of the waste streams.
• Ensuring the safety of every process and product regarding human health, as well as their sustainability from the very early stages.
• Engaging a diverse range of stakeholders through a multi-actor approach and transdisciplinary methodology.  
• Developing a comprehensive campaign to assess the social acceptance of the project’s outcomes to successfully deploy the end-products in the market and the recycling processes in the industry. 

MOEBIOS will help to bring recycling processes to industrial exploitation, resulting in important positive impacts:

• Processing of approximately 232,505 tonnes of mixed bioplastic waste per year.
• Increase of recycled content in new products from bio-based plastics.
• Development of effective sorting and recycling schemes for bio-based plastic materials.
• Improvement of environmental performance across the value chain against specified fossil and/or bio-based benchmarks.
• Social acceptance of circular bio-based solutions and products, allowing for future optimisation of the recycling, upcycling, and manufacturing steps towards best fitting the end users’ needs.
• Creation of new connections of industrial symbiosis between a range of actors throughout the bioplastics value chain, such as recyclers, converters, packagers, wholesalers, textile and agriculture industries, technology experts, and the bio-based and circular industry.
• Launch of three new high-value-added outputs to growing markets, impacting technology developers and implementers, which will raise their economic performance with licensing mechanisms.
• Creation of new knowledge on the variability of bioplastic waste streams from the targeted sectors.
• Saving 232,505 tonnes of plastic waste from landfill or incineration per year, while additionally reducing GHG emissions by 178 tonnes annually.  
• Production of recycled plastic monomers for bio-based products that substitute their fossil counterparts.  
• Contribution to the objectives of at least 11 EU and international policy commitments.