Are you curious or concerned about the environmental impacts of the new technologies for residues valorisation, and you would like to know what economic and social impacts they may have in the future? Then you are welcome to join the satellite workshop “How to define the impact of new technologies? A workshop on sustainability assessment”, held the 21st of November in Brussels, during the Raw Materials Week. A group of motivated researchers, working on several EU H2020 projects on residues valorisation, is eager to discuss these topics and to share their experiences from the ongoing projects. Bottlenecks and potential solutions are presented, followed by an interactive discussion.
To reduce the import dependency of the European Union for raw materials, the valorization of industrial residues is increasingly seen as a valuable alternative. Residues from several industrial processes, such as metallurgic slags, incineration bottom ashes and mine tailings, contain several valuable metals that are currently lost in landfills. The increasing hunger of our society for materials and resources has consequently put the topic of residues valorization at the forefront of the European agenda.
But what are the environmental/economic and social impacts of the new residue valorization processes that are currently being developed? How can we ensure that those additional impacts do not become worse than a well-managed landfilling? Finally, since most of the new technologies are still available at laboratory scale, how can we upscale the data, to predict their impacts at a large scale? Finding an answer to these questions will help researchers to develop the decision tools that will help policymakers to drive the transition towards a circular economy.
A broad cluster of EU H2020 project aims to discuss these questions starting from the experiences in ongoing projects.
Click here to register and to check the workshop program.
Programme:
14.00: Welcome and introduction to the workshop
14.15: Sustainability in recovering metals from secondary resources: Approach and lessons learned in METGROW and CHROMIC (Yoko Dams, VITO and Koen Oorts, ARCHE)
14.35: Sustainability in the mining sector: Approach and lessons learned in NEMO (Andrea di Maria, KU Leuven)
14.50: Sustainability in enhanced landfill mining: Approach and lessons learned in NEW-MINE (Karel Van Acker, KU Leuven)
15.00: Summary and common issues
15.15: coffee break
15.45-16.45: Interactive discussion
16.45: wrap-up and outlook to next event
17.00 – 18.00: networking cocktail
