The project Model2bio, which involves several European stakeholders and aims to develop a tool capable of predicting and giving a second use to waste from the agri-food industry, in order to recycle and reuse it, has begun. The research process includes the test and validation of meat, vegetable, dairy and beverage industries in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece. The tool consists of a predictive mathematical modeling to estimate the usefulness of each food waste to choose the best recovery route and its potential for resource and energy recovery in each recovery, as well as the seasonality and geographical location.

The project, coordinated by CeitTecnun, as well as industrial companies, technology centers, universities and different organizations that will provide a heterogeneous and complementary vision.

The director of the School's Industrial Organization department , Elisabeth Viles, explains that the participation of Tecnun takes place, above all, at the beginning of project, "where the aim is to know how the production systems of the industries of the agri-food sector are defined in relation to the generation and management of their waste, in order to characterize them", emphasizes Viles. In this part of the project, participates the department of Industrial Organization of Tecnun, and more specifically the group of Sustainable Improvement.

"The goal of this part is to gather the necessary information to feed two important work packages of the project: one has to do with the simulation models that will be carried out to establish the possibilities of waste valorization, and the other, with the development of a mathematical optimization model in which, starting from the knowledge of the waste generated by the companies, allows to make a reliable estimate", underlines Elisabeth Viles.

The project will run for three years and will be funded by the Bio-Based industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) initiative of the Horizon 2020 program, the European program for research and innovation in various thematic areas. Model2Bio, framed within the scope of Economics Circular, is aligned with the European goal to significantly reduce the amount of bio-waste sent to landfills. Thus becoming a potential substitute for fossil fuel-based resources and being used as subject feedstock for bio-based industries.