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The 36-month SAFEWASTES project groups academic staff and food industry SMEs with expertise in upgrading industrial organic wastes, biochemistry and phytochemistry, nutrition, physiology, bacteriology, functional genomics, feed technology and manufacturing, as well as environmental protection. The Austrian-led project will start by developing a recycling process for food industry waste – and adapt the process for the plant-based-additives industry – to recover valuable compounds from organic waste from sources including artichokes, milk thistle (Silbyum marianum) and thyme extracts.
SAFEWASTES will conduct phytochemical evaluations and in vitro and in vivo testing to validate the recovery processes, as well as the functional values of the compounds and the additives made from them, assessing risks, quality and safety. It will demonstrate the costs and benefits of the processes and measure their positive and negative environmental impacts.
One key project aim is to develop organic feed additives to replace in-feed antibiotics, which the European Union plans to phase out in 2006. The phase-out, intended to minimise development of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic micro-organisms, could initially lead to increased gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders in livestock. The key project aims are
- replace in-feed antibiotics
- organic additives based on recovered compounds
- meet consumer demands for safer, higher quality food
- improve animal welfare
- boost European competitiveness
- reduce the load on landfills
- cut methane production by compost
- reduce other potentially toxic compounds
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