Last World Water Day, from CONSERVAL decided to organize the workshop ‘The Value of Water: key to the production and socioeconomic activity’ (El Valor del Agua: clave en la producción y actividad socioeconómica). Achievements and challenges of the CONSERVAL project, aimed at a circular economy system within the canning industry, were displayed along with its ten sessions.
As a novelty, the event served as a presentation for the CONSERVAL Cross-Border Network, a brand new space dedicated to the promotion of sustainable managing, funding aid, training, and strategic partnering, among other services.
Furthermore, the workshop accommodated other European-level initiatives contributing, just as CONSERVAL, to the wastewater refining, environmental preservation, and added value for the water cycle, namely HYDROUSA and NextGEN.
You can now check out the ten sessions for this workshop, which you can also find in our YouTube channel:
The Value of Water
1. The project leader, Álvaro Silva (CETAQUA), presents the new business model from CONSERVAL, which adds value to by-products and wastewater in the canning industry, while also analyzing the results so far.
2. The head for Sustainability and Circular Economy at ANFACO-CECOPESCA, Leticia Regueiro, examines the impact of the canning industry and marine products processing in Galicia and Northern Portugal. The analysis is made possible by the survey carried out alongside the Fish Canning Producers National Association of Portugal (ANICP) among the related corporations within the Euroregion.
3. From CETAQUA, Tamara Casero brings the technological advances within Phase Two of project CONSERVAL: the optimal conditions for the harvesting of specific volatile fatty acids using wastewater.
4. As part of Biogroup, the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela researcher, Miguel Mauricio, explains the modelling for the recovery of volatile fatty acids from wastewater coming from the canning industry. This modelling allows anticipating a way to convert glucose into specific acids.
5. Following the prior two interventions, Ana Ribeiro, from the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP), tackles the contribution of her team to the production of volatile fatty acids, more precisely, the splitting of the streams of waste as to obtain concentrations suitable for commercialization.
6. Inaugurating Phase Three of CONSERVAL, Leticia Regueiro (ANFACO-CECOPESCA) shows the results regarding the recovery of by-products from the canning industry, mainly the added value resulting from the transformation in oils with high Omega 3 content and protein hydrolysates, highly demanded in pharmacy and cosmetics.
7. In this presentation, Ana Ribeiro (FEUP) details the splitting and refining of oils and proteins from by-products and waste streams.
8. Lucía Lloret (FEUGA) focuses on the CONSERVAL Cross-Border Network, a nexus between all the actors involved in the value chain of the canning industry, but not only. This network provides knowledge exchange and sustainable managing based on the value of waste and by-products.
9. As it was stated earlier, CONSERVAL is not the only European initiative revolving around water. Simo Malamis (NTUA, Greece) represents HYDROUSA, a project centered on water regeneration solutions in the Mediterranean.
10. As the journey ends, Mehdi Khouri (UNEXE, UK) talked about the technical, commercial, and governance solutions included in project NextGen, part of the Horizon 2020 program. Just as CONSERVAL, it emerges as a Circular Economy framework. At its core, three elements: water, energy, and waste.
