
Background & project objective
Bin2Bean will support cities in their transition towards regenerative soil systems by promoting innovations for soil improvement from bio-waste with a value-based approach. The project will implement 3 Living Labs (LL), as pilot city-regions, to follow a multi-actor and participative approach. In each LL, after mapping local contexts in terms of material and monetary flows, a tailored evaluation framework to demonstrate the safety, environmental and socio-economic performance of soil improvers will be co-designed and implemented, through field testing on experimental sites, feasibility studies and choice experiments. The data obtained will feed into a pilot scoring system, that will be co-developed and validated during the project, to help cities selecting the most effective solutions adapted to the geo-spatial context, i.e. inner city, urban-rural fringe and the wider market. The highest scored solutions will be selected for the development of innovative and tailored business models. The latter will match to stakeholders’ willingness-to-adopt (circular) implementation packages, e.g. collection schemes, cooperation networks, infrastructures and fee structures. The pre-market processes will be monitored through Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA). Finally, based on all previous results, local, national and EU policy roadmaps will be drafted, including waste charging policies and citizen awareness campaigns in the city-region, that will be piloted in LLs. All this will feed into a PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) approach, enabling cities to create a continuous value-based improvement loop towards regenerative soil systems.
Bin2Bean will support local waste management with the creation of 40 start-ups specialising in the soil improvers value chains. This will help to reach Europe’s 2035 objectives of reducing landfill to 10% of total waste while reinjecting nearly 135,000 tonnes of nitrogen and 45,000 tonnes of phosphorus into soils in an environmental, human and sustainable way.
Project output
Main project output will focus on the core aspects that are listed in below table.
Aspect | Output description |
---|---|
Toolbox | Toolbox guiding cities towards the implementation of the PCDA approach, including a roadmap on the sequencing and use of BIN2BEAN tools. The latter will include all the guidelines produced throughout the project on high-quality and efficient bio-waste collection and recycling, on safe and sustainable production and use of soil improvers and on maximizing the market uptake and economic viability of the most virtuous solutions. |
Evaluation framework | Evaluation framework including improved QA/QC protocols for collection and composting or digestating of bio-waste, improved testing methods to demonstrate the safety of soil improvers, incl. interlaboratory comparison test protocols, and a set of indicators generating data to support improved environmental performance. |
Scoring system | Scoring system computing the overall performances of regenerative soil systems solutions, by combining a set of evidence-based indicators, including: (1) technical indicators, defined within the evaluation framework and measuring the safety, health and environmental performance of soil improvers throughout their life cycle and; and (2) socio-economic indicators, i.e. end-users acceptance & willingness-to-pay, upscaling feasibility and marketability. According to the solution score, this digital platform would redirect to the best suited BIN2BEAN guidelines and tools (e.g. market entrance guidelines for solutions with the highest score, technical and/or social guidelines for solutions with lower scores). |
Policy recommendations | Bin2Bean policy recommendations will consist in i) a roadmap per LL, defining tailored strategies for market uptake of local soil improvers and bio-waste collection scheme; ii) a White Paper for reorienting National and EU policies for waste management, circular economy and soil health towards harmonized local policies. |