Res Urbis

Res Urbis (Resources from Urban Bio-Waste) is a 3-year project co-funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Commission, that aim at developing an integrated single technology for processing different bio-waste and producing reliable bio-based products.

With a majority of the world predicted to move towards urbanization over the next few decades, the issue of urban bio-waste is growing and Separate collection of bio-waste will become mandatory in all EU Countries by the end of 2023 as laid down in the EU Waste Framework Directive. 

Res Urbis aims to process this waste into bio-based materials that can be used for product manufacturing. A primary goal for Res Urbis is to develop an integrated pathway where all types and sources of bio-waste can be processed at once. 

The process of the project can be explained in a few steps:

• Collection of bio-waste from various sources.
• Processing the waste in an urban biorefinery.
• The process yields numerous byproducts: biogas, nutrients, bio-solvents, fibres, PHA.
• PHA polymers were successfully used to produce a bioplastic that looks like and works like traditional plastics but it comes from waste and can be biodegraded into composting plants (and does not contain harmful substances).

The potential market applications of the produced PHA include biodegradable commodity films, interlayer films, fibre biocomposites, speciality durables like electronics and slow C-release materials. The products are non-toxic and biodegradable. 

Res Urbis has run two pilots in Lisbon and Treviso, along with experiments in five different research laboratories. The results of the pilot yielded 30 kg of PHA which was processed in three different ways to produce commercial-grade bioplastics. The bioplastics showed a lower impact compared to petrochemical-based plastics.

SABIOMATERIALS is a partner of this project and produces the material. The company also manufactured some packaging to show evidence that the technology is working. The project has also tested three additional urban "territorial clusters" for economic analysis and integration testing. These include Barcelona, South Wales and Copenhagen.

Having identified the market for PHA-based products, the project now aims to manufacture the products on market-scale, test their applications and economically analyze their portfolio.