Title: Valorisation of Rural and Urban Biowaste: An Inventory of Feedstocks, Technologies and Production chains

Abstract:

According to IPCC, bioenergy should be an essential and integral part of carbon reducing policies; bioenergy use will be substantial in 1.5°C pathways due to its role in decarbonizing energy use. Bioresidues and biobased materials represent a potential source of renewable energy and biobased materials. The use of urban and rural waste as feedstocks for bioeconomy production chains will contribute to the realisation of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to healthy lives (SDG-3), sustainable water and sanitation (SDG-6), energy security (SDG-7) and climate change (SDG-13). Questions that need to be addressed include the selection of the feedstock, their availability and the use of conversion technologies needed to develop environmentally sustainable, economic and socially acceptable production chains.

Low urban and food waste recycling rates and high costs for waste collection, handling and conversion are some of the barriers that hinder development successful waste-conversion chains. This presentation discusses availability of organic waste streams from forestry, agriculture and urban centres in the Netherlands and various countries in Europe. Results of recent projects that describe options for the valorisation of urban waste in dedicated biobased production chains (feedstocks, biorefineries, potential end-products) using the urban metabolism analytical framework will be presented. Special attention is given to logistic concepts including bio-hubs.

Biography:

Hans Langeveld studied tropical agronomy at Wageningen University. He started his career at the economic faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he worked on food production and land use issues. He specialised in sustainable agriculture at Wageningen University and Research Centre, developing into a specialist on a land use, nutrient management and climate (Greenhouse Gas emissions), analysing nutrient emissions, sustainable bioenergy and biobased economy. In 2008, Hans started a company, Biomass research, which serves governments, companies and NGO’s. Over the past few years, it provided input to complex issues related biomass availability, biobased economy and sustainable land use issues. Hans has co-authored books on agricultural systems, biomass and biobased economy, and has given over 200 presentations. He is board member of the Dutch Bioeconomy Federation