Barcelona Local Living Lab #1

As an opening of this first and introductory meeting of the Local Living Labs, Rosaria Chifari, from Fundació ENT, the project leader presented the Biocircularcities project, explaining its aims and the goals of this first Living Lab.

Then, Victor Mitjans, from the AMB, gave a hint on how the biowaste stream is managed in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, the local legislation implemented and the good practices already in place. He also explained the biowaste chain selected from this project, and the alternative scenario to be analysed which includes the biowaste source separated from door to door and smart bin collections and their valorisation as compost, biogas, biosolvent and other products with added value.

After this introduction, participants discussed the challenges encountered in the management of biowaste from MSW.  They concluded that the high amount of impurities in this stream has to be addressed, door to door or smarts bin collection have to be promoted, giving credit to people who separate right is better than fining people who do not, the regulatory framework has to be revised in order to allow new products into the market, politicians have to support the changes and citizens have to be well informed.

Although the second debate focused on successful stories or possible alternatives on circular bioeconomy to improve the management and/or valorisation for the biowaste from MSW, the participants eagerly debated about the possible alternatives to be applied. Participants agreed that separate collection has to be improved, the new added valued product as bioplastics cannot be escalated to an industrial level yet as the performance of the process is very low and that it could be interesting to include the upgrading of the biogas to biomethane as part of the selected chain for the metropolitan area of Barcelona pilot.