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Interreg Europe

Aims are: “improving knowledge related to circular economy of biological streams i.e. bio-based circular economy; increasing recycling rates of biological materials e.g. food waste/biowaste, municipal and industrial sludge and agricultural residues; transferring expertise about: cooperation models, e.g. ecosystems, networks, administrative cooperation, best available technologies, e.g. bio refinery, biogas production.”

  • COCOON _ Consortium for a Coherent European Landfill Management Strategy (Interreg Europe: Jan 2017 – Dec 2021)

The “objective is to develop, integrate and improve relevant policy instruments, while increasing subsidies through operational programmes (OPs) for LfM projects.)”

“As a result of LfM projects, the recovery of resources (landfill gas and water first, other resources later), as well as land recovery is increased while future environmental hazards can be avoided.”

  • iWATERMAP _ Water Technology Innovation Roadmaps (Interreg Europe: Jun 2018 – May 2023)

“Overall Project objective is to improve innovation policies for enhancing the critical mass development of innovation ecosystems in the water technology sector. Reaching the critical mass in innovation will allow partner regions in future to rise above their own weight in innovation development, creating the conditions for raising competitiveness, growth and jobs in the regions.”

  • PLASTECO _ Supporting EU regions to curb plastics waste and littering (Interreg Europe: Aug 2019 – Jul 2023) “PLASTECO, in line with the “European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy”, will support participating territories to take the steps necessary for a transition towards a “new plastics economy”. The focus of the project will be on advances in waste management, eradication of single-use plastics from regional value chains, and spurring growth through eco-innovation. PLASTECO will cover the areas of waste management, public procurement, funding/investments, secondary raw materials, and awareness raising.”
  • TANIA _ TreAting contamination through NanoremedIAtion (Interreg Europe: Jan 2017 – Dec 2021)

“There are an estimated c.2.5 million potentially contaminated sites across Europe, of which at least 14% require remediation. Managing contaminated land costs around €6.5 billion per year. 42% of this comes from public budgets.

Partners from 5 regions have identified the potential of connecting new and future materials and clean technology to natural heritage protection, in order to address these environmental and economic problems. Through TANIA, they support wide and effective application of nanoremediation for contaminated soil and water.”

Other Interreg programmes

  • BEST _ Better Efficiency for Industrial Sewage Treatment (Interreg Baltic Sea Region: Oct 2017 – Sep 2020)

The project “aims to improve industrial sewage treatment in the Baltic Sea Region. In the project we are helping municipal waste water treatment plants to handle industrial waste waters by enhancing collaboration and best practices between municipalities, industries and water works.”

  • CATCH _ water sensitive Cities: the Answer To CHallenges of extreme weather events’ (Interreg North Sea Region: 2017 – ongoing)

“The overall objective of CATCH is to demonstrate and accelerate the redesign of urban water management of midsize cities in the North Sea Region in order to become climate resilient cities that are sustainable, liveable and profitable on the long term.”

  • CWC _ City Water Circle (Interreg Central Europe: Apr 2019 – Mar 2022)

“Climate change induced hydrological risks are making central European cities increasingly vulnerable against urban floods and at the same time make the water scarcity problem worse. Coupled with growing drinking water consumption and consequently rising amounts of wastewater to be treated, this threatens the safety of future water supplies.

The CWC project aims to help municipalities to reform outdated urban water infrastructure systems via applying a circular economy approach, which offers many economic and environmental benefits. This will be achieved by the project by promoting a water saving culture, including the use of non-conventional water resources and by taking the lead in adopting urban rainwater harvesting and utilisation as well as greywater recovery measures on city level.”

  • IWAMA _ Interactive WAter MAnagement (Interreg Baltic Sea Region: Oct 2017 – Sep 2020)

”The Interreg project IWAMA equipped waste water managers with new audit tools and a durable platform for life-long learning and exchange so that they can better protect our environment, in particular by optimising the energy use and sludge management of waste water treatment plants.”

  • Re-Water _ Eco technologies for the waste water management (Interreg Greece-Italy: 2018 –2020)

”The project main objective is to introduce sustainable technologies and processes to manage wastewater disposal, with the final aim of reducing marine pollution caused by the effluents derived from water treatment, and improve the quality of the sewerage treatment plants.”

  • WATenERgy CYCLE _ Urban water full cycle: from its source to its end-users and back to the environment (Interreg Balkan-Mediterranean: 2017 – 2019)

“The overall objective of WATenERgy CYCLE is to optimize the integrated water supply management regarding sustainable long-term water demand & resources (water/energy) availability & water supply systems efficiency related to climate change & socio-economic aspects. The project aims at increasing the level of adaptation to resources efficiency & climate change resilience measures up to 0,25%.”

  • WaterCoG _ Water Co-Governance for Sustainable Ecosystems (Interreg North Sea Region: Jan 2016 – Oct 2021)

The focus of the project “is to understand how the implementation of EU directives can be achieved at a local level in the North Sea Region.

WaterCog aims to demonstrate that the implementation and integration of various water management frameworks can be achieved while also providing social, economic and environmental benefits that are currently not being realized.”

  • WTN _ Water Test Network (Interreg North-West Europe: 2018 – 2021)

“The Water Test Network (WTN) project will establish a transnational network of testing facilities which can be used by SMEs in North-West Europe (NWE) to test, demonstrate and develop new products for the water sector. In this way, new innovations will be developed and it will accelerate the time to market.”

  • WOW! _ Wider business Opportunities for raw materials from Wastewater (Interreg North-West Europe: 2018 – 2021)

WOW! “aims to make the transition to a more circular approach by matching supply and demand of cellulose, lipids and PHA bioplastics from sewage.”

GreenWIN – Greener Waterway Infrastructure | Interreg NWE

https://www.nweurope.eu/projects/project-search/greenwin-greener…

Project Summary. Greener Waterway Infrastructure (Green WIN) is an Interreg North West Europe (NWE) funded project, running from Nov 2018 to Dec 2022. It tackles the excess energy use and high carbon emissions Waterway Management Organisations (WMO’s) cause when pumping water around the region’s rivers and canals. The project partnership is made up of WMO’s, Universities, Public …

HORIZON 2020

Aim of the project “is to build an interdisciplinary platform for connecting city planners, architects, system designers, circular economists, engineers and researchers from social and natural sciences that develop systems for circular management of resources in cities.”

Circular City is focusing on the following topics: Built environment; Sustainable urban water utilization; Resource recovery; Urban farming; Transformation tools.

Urban Water – sustainable urban water utilisation: “This working group investigates the implementation of a safe and functional water cycle within the urban biosphere, where water is defined as a resource where nutrients can be harvested from wastewater, heavy metal adsorbed by filter materials contributing to phytomining and the treated water looped back for irrigation, sanitation and also recreational purposes. … .

OBJECTIVES

Critically appraising the established centralised water flow, defining available resources within the water flow and risk assessment on urban water, NBS for storm water management and waste water treatment.”

  • B-WaterSmart _ accelerates the transformation to water-smart economies and societies in coastal Europe and beyond (Sep 2020 – Aug 2024)

“The project applies a large-scale systemic innovation approach to select, connect and demonstrate a tailored suite of technology, management and smart data solutions for multiple users and sectors, and create new business models based on circular economy and water-smartness in six cities and regions as living labs – Alicante (ES), Bodø (NO), Flanders (BE), Lisbon (PT), East Frisia (DE), Venice (IT). B-WaterSmart will demonstrate in real systems, at multiple scales, a range of promising technologies for water reuse/nutrient recovery, and smart data applications for more efficient, safe allocation & use of resources (water, energy, nutrients). The project applies a participatory approach for co-creation & implementation of solutions through local Communities of Practice and a joint innovation alliance of problem owners, and develop recommendations for suitable governance models, regulation & policy instruments.”

“Digital-water.city’s (DWC) main goal is to boost the integrated management of water systems in five major European urban and peri-urban areas (Berlin, Milan, Copenhagen, Paris and Sofia), by leveraging the potential of data and smart digital technologies. DWC will create linkages between the digital and the physical worlds by developing and demonstrating 18 advanced digital solutions to address current and future water-related challenges.”

  • Fiware4Water _ FIWARE for the Next Generation Internet Services for the WATER sector (Jun 2019 – May 2022)

“Fiware4Water project intends to replicate success stories by linking the water sector to FIWARE, an open-source IT platform created in 2011 under the Future Internet Public Private Partnership funded by the European Commission. The connection of the water sector to the FIWARE platform will contribute to the application of innovative digital solutions. In particular, it will make it possible to combine and process various data streams, into a standardised output, leading to a better and more sustainable use of resources. Fiware4Water solution will be first demonstrated in four demo cases covering a wide range of challenges, as exemplary paradigms of its potential. Then, the project will build and develop an EU and global community of adopters around the Fiware4Water ecosystem, as a go-to platform for innovative solutions and resource management.”

  • HYDROUSA _ Demonstration of water loops with innovative regenerative business models for the Mediterranean region (Jul 2018 – Dec 2022)

“HYDROUSA will provide innovative, regenerative and circular solutions for (1) nature-based water management of Mediterranean coastal areas, closing water loops; (2) nutrient management, boosting the agricultural and energy profile; and (3) local economies, based on circular value chains. The solutions will be demonstrated on 3 major touristic islands in Greece. Detailed technical and financial deployment plans will be established for replication in additional 25 locations worldwide.”

  • INCOVER _ Innovative eco-technologies for resource efficiency for wastewater(Jun 2016 – Jul 2019)

“INCOVER concept has been designed to move wastewater treatment from being primarily a sanitation technology towards a bio-product recovery industry and a recycled water supplier. INCOVER solutions permitted to recover energy (biomethane) and bioproducts (bioplastics, organic acids, biofertiliser, biochar, irrigation water) from municipal, industrial and agricultural wastewater, while reducing the overall operation and maintenance costs of wastewater treatment.”

  • NAIADES _A holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector (Jun 2019 – May 2022)

“NAIADES Ecosystem envisions transforming water sector through automated and smarter water resource management and environmental monitoring, achieving a high level of water services in both residential or commercial consumers, exploiting the efficient use of physical and digital components of water ecosystem. 3 pilot cities: Alicante, Braila and Carouge.”

  • NextGen _ Towards a next generation of water systems and services for the circular economy (Jul 2018 – Jun 2022)

“NextGen will demonstrate innovative technological, business and governance solutions for water in the circular economy in ten high-profile, large-scale, demonstration cases across Europe, and we will develop the necessary approaches, tools and partnerships, to transfer and upscale. The circular economy transition to be driven by NextGen encompasses a wide range of water-embedded resources: water itself (reuse at multiple scales supported by naturebased storage, optimal management strategies, advanced treatment technologies, engineered ecosystems and compact/mobile/scalable systems); energy (combined water-energy management, treatment plants as energy factories, water-enabled heat transfer, storage and recovery for allied industries and commercial sectors) and materials (nutrient mining and reuse, manufacturing new products from waste streams, regenerating and repurposing membranes to reduce water reuse costs, and producing activated carbon from sludge to minimise costs of micro-pollutant removal).”

  • POWERSTEP _ Full-scale demonstration of energy positive sewage treatment plant concepts towards market penetration (Jul 2015 – Jun 2018)

“PowerStep transforms existing municipal wastewater treatment plants from net power consumers into energy neutral or even energy positive service providers, exploiting the chemical energy bound in the organic matter.”

  • Project Ô _ Demonstration of planning and technology tools for a circular, integrated and symbiotic use of water (Jun 2018 – May 2022)

“Project Ô demonstrates approaches and technologies to drive an integrated and symbiotic use of water within a specific area, putting together the needs of different users and waste water producers, involving regulators, service providers, civil society, industry and agriculture.”

  • RUN4LIFE _ Recovery and utilisation of nutrient 4 low impact fertiliser (Jun 2017 – Nov 2021)

“Domestic wastewater (WW) is an important carrier of nutrients usually wasted away by current decentralised WW treatments (WWT). Run4Life proposes an alternative strategy for improving nutrient recovery rates and material qualities, based on a decentralised treatment of segregated black water (BW), kitchen waste and grey water combining existing WWT with innovative ultra-low water flushing vacuum toilets for concentrating BW, hyper-thermophilic anaerobic digestion as one-step process for fertilisers production and bio-electrochemical systems for nitrogen recovery. Different parts of Run4Life will be large scale demonstrated at 4 demo-sites in Belgium, Spain, Netherlands and Sweden, adapting the concept to different scenarios (market, society, legislation). Performance tests will be carried out with obtained products (compared to commercial fertilisers) with close collaboration with fertiliser companies. Process will be optimised by on-line monitoring key performance indicators (nutrient concentration, pathogens, micro pollutants).”

  • SCOREwater _ Digital solutions for water: linking the physical and digital world for water solutions (May 2019 – Apr 2023)

“SCOREwater enhances the resilience of cities against climate change and urbanisation by enabling a water smart society and securing future ecosystem services. The project introduces digital services to improve management of wastewater, storm-water and flooding events. Services are developed and verified by relevant stakeholders (communities, municipalities, businesses, civil society) in iterative collaboration with developers, tailoring to stakeholders’ needs. The project identifies best practices for developing and using the digital services, addressing water stakeholders beyond the project partners and develop technologies to increase public engagement in water management. SCOREwater delivers an innovation ecosystem driven by the financial savings in both maintenance and operation of water systems that are offered using the SCOREwater digital services, providing new business opportunities for water and ICT SMEs.”

  • SMART-Plant _ Scale-up of low-carbon footprint material recovery techniques in existing wastewater treatment plants (Jun 2016 – May 2020)

“SMART-Plant will scale-up in real environment eco-innovative and energy-efficient solutions to renovate existing wastewater treatment plants and close the circular value chain by applying low-carbon techniques to recover materials that are otherwise lost. The processes considered in this project are: Bio-resource recovery; Phosphorus recovery; Bioplastics recovery; Cellulose recovery. 9 pilot systems will be optimized for 2 years in real environment in 5 municipal water treatment plants, including also 2 post-processing facilities.”

  • ULTIMATE _ indUstry water-utiLiTy symbIosis for a sMarter wATer society (Jun 2020 – May 2024)

“The project aims, through 9 large –scale demonstrations of Water Smart Industrial Symbiosis (WSIS), to recover, refine and reuse wastewater; extract and exploit energy and materials from municipal and industrial wastewater. ULTIMATE nurtures partnerships between business (incl. industrial and technological ecosystems), water service providers, regulators and policy makers and actively supports them through immersive Mixed Reality storytelling using technology and art to co-produce shared visions for a more circular, profitable, socially responsible and environmentally friendly industry, with water at its centre. The project mobilises a strong partnership of industrial complexes and symbiosis clusters, leading water companies and water service providers, specialised SMEs, research institutes and water industry collaboration networks, and builds on an impressive portfolio of past and ongoing research and innovation, leveraging multiple European and global networks to ensure real impact.”

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