Roadside verges are an important natural resource and as part of the Grassification project we surveyed road verge plants to understand the effects of cut and collection vs cut and leave of roadside grass clippings over time. We wanted to know more about the plants that were observed on the roadside verges (and other grassland and marginal land in the UK), and their contribution to biodiversity and ecosystem services. […]
The Grassification project is aims to valorize roadside grass clippings. Project partners from several organisations have examined different commodities that may add value using the road verge vegetation. These products could, in turn, improve the circular economy by reducing waste and creating a marketable product. These products include food for insects, a source of energy for algae production, furniture, biofertilizers and a source of energy from waste via anaerobic digestion. […]
Read More… from Quantification of contaminants in road verge material
ECOFUNCO organised its first workshop on bio-based materials research. […]
Read More… from ECOFUNCO first workshop on bio-based materials research
The trend for vegan or high nutritional value and functional food is unbroken. Recovering the required protein from agro-industrial side-streams would enhance the overall efficiency of arable land use without compromising food production. […]
Read More… from PROLIFIC: Plant-based proteins for food products
PROLIFIC extracts valuable compounds from agro-industrial side streams. Protein, polyphenols or fibres shall find future application in food, cosmetics, animal feed, or packaging. During the first two years of the project partners have developed and optimized different methods to extract compounds from peas, chickpeas, coffee green beans and various fungi feedstock. […]
Read More… from PROLIFIC: Mastering the up-scaling challenge
PROLIFIC is a BBI JU funded research and innovation action. A consortium gathering 18 partners develops and applies new processes and technological solutions to transform agro-industrial residues into higher value products. Our cascading approach extracts proteins and bioactive molecules from legumes, fungi and coffee agro-industrial side-streams. […]
Read More… from PROLIFIC: New bio-based value chains from agro-industrial side-streams
There is great potential for green innovations of plastic packaging. Already in its first public workshop “Residual Biomasses for Eco-compatible and Sustainable Food Packaging” Prolific explored the various options to produce and apply bio-based polymers or biomass-derived fillers. Further efforts are directed towards improving the shelf-life of perishable goods by functional packaging. The encapsulation of active compounds like polyphenols, or coatings containing chitosan potentially bring anti-bacterial, anti-fungal or antioxidant properties. […]
Read More… from PROLIFIC: Greener and functional plastic packaging
RECOVER is a 4-year project started on 1st June 2020 that scales up an innovative biotech solution for the non-recyclable plastic packaging and agricultural films waste streams, based on the combination of plastic-degrading microorganisms, novel enzymes, earthworms and insects resulting in new feedstocks, chitin and chitosan for plastics and coatings, new fertilizers for the primary sector and bio-based industries. […]
After months of research, ECOFUNCO is ready to share its Multi-stakeholders platform. The platform has been thought as a collection of already existing and verified sources, such as open platforms to find partners for collaborations, and lists of websites and key actors providing verified data on the sector of bio-based economy, with a specific attention to bio-based coatings and bioplastics. […]