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Sample of organic waste analysed at CIRSEE (France)

Bioforever is one of the CIRSEE s emblematic waste recovery projects. This research and innovation programme, sponsored by the European Union as part of the Horizon 2020 programme and involving 14 European companies, including SUEZ, is looking into different processes to convert waste from the wood industry. Today, wood is used mainly to manufacture objects, furniture and paper pulp, or to produce energy. But it is also possible to extract from it several useful components (lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose) that can be used to produce chemicals with lubricating, surface-active, nutritional or energetic properties. Which is the reason why researchers are particularly interested in wood and wood waste.

Welcome to the BioResourceLab

These ambitious projects demand significant human and technical resources. Which is why SUEZ is building a brand new R&I centre, the BioResourceLab, that should be operational in

2020. The new centre will be located at the heart of the Écopôle in Narbonne, France, in the immediate vicinity of an ultra-modern waste sorting and recovery centre with an annual capacity of almost 90,000 tonnes. Its future missions will consist of developing the means of recovering organic waste as bioresources (biomolecules, biofertilisers, biomaterials and bioenergy) using new physical, chemical and biological processes.

These worldwide projects will involve international scientific communities, academic institutions and start-ups. The BioResourceLab will gather a multitude of different profiles, from waste management specialists, to experts in microbiology and biotechnologies, chemists, agronomists, industrial process engineers, business developers and marketeers. This synergy will be necessary for this initiative, and the projects it develops, to succeed, explains Marion Crest, who will be in charge of SUEZ new research and innovation centre.

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