The Interreg North-West Europe (NWE) project ReNu2Farm, recently published a report entitled ‘Book of success stories of companies actively adopting recovery technologies’ under the project work package 1: Production and logistics of Recycling-derived fertilisers (RDFs) (WPT1_D2.5).
ReNu2Farm focusses on nutrient recycling and fertiliser production from different waste streams (animal manure, sewage sludge and food waste), and its priority specific objective is to optimise the reuse of material and natural resources in NWE. One of the tasks overseen by the project is to provide testimonials of practical experiences by successful businesses actively adopting nutrient recovery technologies (NRTs). The 10 companies from NWE interviewed in the context of this report were: Green Generation, Enrich Environment (Ireland), Group op de Beeck, Vermeulen Construct (Belgium), GMB and Eraspo (the Netherlands), Violleau, SEDE Environnment, Germiflor (France) and Ökobit and Berliner Wasserbetriebe & CNP CYCLES (Germany). The companies have shared their stories by briefly describing their history / background, current business activities, challenges faced and solutions to overcome the existing hindrances. As a parting note, each company has provided an advice that can be considered as a take-away message by potential businesses in this sector.
Different NRTs are already established in the market and have been undertaken extensively by companies, but it needs to be emphasised that albeit being proven NRTs, each of them possess their own implementation / operational issues that need to be tackled in a customised manner. Moreover, the RDFs obtained as a result of these NRTs still need to gain end-user acceptance. In the book of success stories, companies have described how they deal with these barriers and what can be done to improve the current scenario.
The story of each company not only indicates the trials encountered by businesses in the NRT sector, but also exhibits how consistent research in this field along with a determined attitude of sustainability of the owners has made these companies a success story in their respective countries.
