Our partner PAS organised on the 14th of December 2019, its first National Dissemination Forum, crucial activity within the project to reach local stakeholders, policy makers and maximise our results.
This NDF meeting entitled “Cooperation for the circular economy in the fertilizer sector”, took place during the 6th edition of the Young Scientists Conference in the theme ‘Challenges for Polish Science’, organized by the CreativeTime in Cracow. A dedicated slot of 2 hours enabled to discuss the LEX4BIO objectives and results.
Experts dealing with agriculture-related issues, modern technologies for the production of fertilizers from waste, specialists in the circular economy (CE) were invited to this brainstorming session to gather their interest and feedback, especially on the following topics:
The identification of the benefits of circular economy implementation in the fertilizer sector
- Reduction in the import dependence on natural resources in the European Union (EU) and in the selected countries, as Poland
- Use of bio-based fertilizers (BBF) to help the minimisation of the overall raw materials/ waster/ energy use, needed for the production of comercial fertilizers products
- Closing the materials loops of resources trapped in waste
- Promotion of changes in the farmers behaviour – in the waste management practices
- Implementation of the EU law on the CE products in the fertilizer sector
The identification of the barriers to circular economy implementation in the fertilizer sector
- Higher prices of products from recycling than products produced from raw materials
- Lack of social acceptance for the goods from secondary sources
- Strict regulations on the timing of specific fertilizer applications
- Lack of sufficient technical resources – technical infrastructure
- Lack of sufficient technical resources – transport infrastructure
- Lack of legal restrictions on the CE implementation in the fertilizer sector on national level.
From these discussions, several major outputs were highlighted to ease the LEX4BIO project implementation, and better understand the needs and requirements of the stakeholders and end-users. As a reminder, NDFs will be organised annually by each of the research/science-based partners at their country level, and are core assets of the LEX4BIO communication, dissemination and networking strategy.