The UNESCO Chair Participates at the 19th SDEWES Conference

• #Life Cycle
• #Research
• #Waste Management

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The 19th Annual Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES), held in Rome from 8 to 12 September, brought together more than 700 participants and contributed greatly to making this year’s meeting the largest and most successful to date.

The UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF researcher, Cristina Campos Herrero, gave a presentation on: “Advancing Circular Economy Initiatives in the Canary Islands (Spain): Integrating Plastic Recycling and Banana Waste Valorization for Environmental Sustainability’ in the framework of the CICEP project, which is coordinated by the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) and counts on the participation of partners from the Universitat de Girona (UdG) and ESCI-UPF, as well as the Politecnico di Milano in the calculation of social impacts.

Growing concerns about plastic pollution highlight the need for sustainable waste management, especially in regions without proper infrastructure, such as the Canary Islands. To tackle this issue, projects focus on recycling plastics and reusing banana farming waste. Researchers aim to minimize environmental and social impacts by converting banana stalks and plastic caps into valuable products, following the principles of a circular economy. They use Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the process from start to finish.

The technology works by extracting long and short fibres from banana waste to mix with plastic residues. A Social Hotspot analysis is conducted to identify potential social risks, and environmental impact is measured using the EF3.0 method and Gabi software. The study predicts that the banana stalk fibre market in the Canary Islands could be worth between 12.24 and 15.30 million euros annually. The main objective is to promote a circular economy and make the most of waste through this environmental and social analysis.

The study analyzes the use of banana pseudostem and rachis fibres in the Canary Islands as reinforcements in plastic compounds. Different environmental impact scenarios are compared, where the scenario with 50% long fibre (LF) and 50% recycled plastic (RP) shows higher environmental impacts than the 100% RP-HDPE scenario in some indicators. During the production process of 1 kg of composite material, the greatest environmental impact occurs in the peeling stage, with the waste being sent for composting. This initial phase of the analysis will also collect data on social indicators for future phases of the study.

The CICEP project TED2021-131039B-C33 is funded by MCIN/AEI/10. 13039/501100011033 and by the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.