Cities and Regions to boost Europe’s Urban Bioeconomy with the HOOP project

Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash

Have you heard about the HOOP project? If you are interested in urban bioeconomy, this is definitely a project to follow. Maybe you can even join its netzork of cities and regions!

This H2020 project supports 8 lighthouse cities and regions in developing large-scale urban circular bioeconomy initiatives that will focus on sustainably obtaining bio-based products from urban biowaste and wastewater. HOOP promotes the replication of best practices by European cities and regions for the recovery of biowaste and wastewater, generating major bioeconomy hubs.

HOOP is creating a network of cities and regions which have the opportunity to follow closely the project developments and engage with the project’s lighthouses and experts. This will mainly happen via a dedicated platform that will be launched in the coming months, the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub, aiming to foster knowledge exchange and replication in cities across Europe. The HOOP network is only open to organisations that plan, organise, or operate municipal waste management or wastewater treatment, for instance local or regional authorities, or waste management companies. The network is managed by the Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource management (ACR+) and it counts 35 members from 14 different countries, including 22 cities and 13 regions.

Joining the HOOP network is totally free of charge and the members have the chance to engage in matchmaking with other cities and regions facing similar bioeconomy challenges or exploring similar innovations, and they are invited to study visits and project workshops. For instance, some members will participate to the upcoming HOOP Study Visit to the Lighthouse cities of Almere and Münster , planned on 21-22 June. Members, together with HOOP partners, will have the opportunity to learn more about Almere and Munster management of biowaste and wastewater! Münster have been separately collecting and managing biowaste since the 1990s so have lots of experience to share. The local waste management company Abfallwirtschaftsbetriebe Münster (AWM) will give a guided tour of their Biowaste Management facilities. Almere is a young city with big sustainability ambitions. They will explain their innovative pilot projects to transform aquatic plants into paper and other bio-based products. The Study Tour is open only to HOOP members and all their travel costs will be covered by the project.

Another service open only to members are the HOOP Lunch Talks, 30 minutes exchanges about the urban circular bioeconomy, involving an expert from the HOOP team who will share information and practical solutions with the members of the HOOP network. This first episode focused on the technologies that the 8 HOOP Lighthouse cities and regions are developing with the goal to recover valuable resources from biowaste to make bio-based products. Thanks to the expertise of Elisa Gambuzzi, R&D Technician in the Environment Department at Technological Center for Energy and Environment (CETENMA), the members dived into collection strategies, bio-products to feed animals, revalorisation of the resude produced in a composting plant, valorisation of streams from biogas production, high-value products from urban wastewater sludge, and also valorisation of coffee grounds and used cooking oil. The next one is planned for 28 April, join the Network to have access to it.

To discover all the benefits of joining the HOOP Network of Cities and Regions, visit the website. To join the network, register here.