LIFE INFUSION Project
| Subject: Beaches
Resource recovery from water resulting from municipal waste
The AMB and EURECAT Foundation recently presented the LIFE INFUSION Project. The aim of the initiative is to improve the current treatment of wastewater resulting from the treatment of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) through a series of technological processes that do not destroy the nutrients present in this water. In addition to the AMB and EURECAT, the presentation was also organised by six other transnational consortium partners (Detricon - Belgium; AMIU - Italy; and Aqualia, Cogersa, EBESA and IRTA - Spain).
The project strives to prove that recovering high-value resources from this type of wastewater, such as biomethane, compost, biofertilizers and water reclaimed through biotechnological processes that consume less energy than those currently being used, is environmentally, technically and economically viable. To do so, this technology will be implemented in two pilot plants: the tank managed by COGERSA in Gijón (Asturias) and at the Besòs Ecoparc in Montcada i Reixac, run by the Directorate for Waste Prevention and Management Services.
LIFE INFUSION will have a duration of 4 years and a total budget of €3,119,601, 55 % of which is co-financed by the European Commission through its LIFE Programme. €256,598 will be directly managed by the AMB.
This project comes about in a context in which 1.3 billion tonnes of solid urban waste (SUW) are generated worldwide. A figure that is expected to rise to 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025. More specifically, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, 1.5 million tonnes of waste were generated in 2018. Furthermore, under the European Union's new Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC), the amount of source-sorted OFMSW is expected to climb in late 2023.