The concept of the circular economy is gaining popularity among Spanish farmers, who are finding innovative ways to give new life to waste products and create an agricultural system based on reusing raw materials and reducing waste. EURACTIV\u2019s partner EFEAGRO reports.<\/p>\n
The initiatives coincide with the EU\u2019s flagship environmental policy, the Green Deal, which includes a plan for the promotion of a circular economy, put forward by the EU\u2019s executive in March.<\/p>\n
The plan includes the objectives to ensure food production protects the environment and fights climate change, reflected in the aims of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).<\/p>\n
Almond shells \u2013 a valuable by-product<\/p>\n
Uni\u00f3 Nuts is a cooperative which transforms and sells dried fruits in more than 30 countries.<\/p>\n
It has also been working hard to figure out the best way to valorise its by-products, the cooperative\u2019s general director Ferr\u00e1n Huguet told EFEAGRO.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the cooperative has found multiple uses for almond shells, ranging from pharmaceutical purposes to the production of dyes for clothes, to biodegradable bags and food wrappers.<\/p>\n
They are also able to be used as a building material, and more specifically as a substitute for teak wood in the construction and varnish of yacht decks, given that the material obtained after shell milling has actually be found to be more resistant.<\/p>\n
This can then contribute to minimising the number of trees cut for decking.<\/p>\n
Thanks to this initiative, in which Uni\u00f3 participates together with other companies, highlights the value creation of the circular economy, and the role it can play in optimising harvesting processing while ensuring that the agricultural sector is environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n
The circle of the olive tree fields<\/p>\n
In the south of the region of Andaluc\u00eda, Miguel \u00c1ngel del Moral grows cereals and olive trees.<\/p>\n
He also belongs to a cooperative which helps create value for the waste products from olive oil production.<\/p>\n
De Moral said that only 20% of the olive goes for oil, while the remaining 80% is unusable.<\/p>\n
However, this remaining waste product can be used as a form of renewable energy, which he highlights also eliminates the problem of recycling this waste.<\/p>\n
Both olive stones and the \u201calperujo\u201d (the material obtained from spinning the olive while extracting the oil) can be used as biofuel, either in industry or for heating in homes, which saves electricity or natural gas.<\/p>\n
These by-products are sold to other industries via the cooperative.<\/p>\n
According to Del Moral, employment and profitability could be generated if producers create new lines of business.<\/p>\n
However, he stressed that although aid schemes to support such practices already exist, the challenge is to achieve \u201cmore profitability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The concept of the circular economy is gaining popularity among Spanish farmers, who are finding innovative ways to give new life to waste products and create an agricultural system based on reusing raw materials and reducing waste. EURACTIV\u2019s partner EFEAGRO reports. The initiatives coincide with the EU\u2019s flagship environmental policy, the Green Deal, which includes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[15963,10416,14365],"supplier":[5585],"class_list":["post-74371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-cap","tag-circulareconomy","tag-farming","supplier-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74371"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=74371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}