The Palencia WWTP takes another step towards the biofactory model The Junta de Castilla y León, the City Council of Palencia and Aquona participate in the ECOVAL project that, financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the Interreg Sudoe program, will transform urban organic waste into resources The Palencia Wastewater Treatment Plant will host one of the pilots of this international project led by Cetaqua, the Water Technology Center linked to Aquona The Palencia wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) will become a demonstration platform for the international ECOVAL project of the Interreg Sudoe 2014-2020 program. The objective of this project is to obtain resources or products with high added value rich in organic carbon, such as volatile fatty acids, from the recovery of organic waste generated in urban environments. In this way, the circular economy will be promoted, promoting the reduction of waste and the protection of the environment through the conversion of waste into resources highly demanded by the plastic, lubricant or agrochemical industries. Cetaqua is leading this initiative promoted by a consortium made up of eight entities from Spain, France and Portugal, such as the Fundación Patrimonio Natural de la Junta de Castilla y León and 29 other associated entities, including the City Council of Palencia and Aquona. ECOVAL, acronym for "Management Coordination and Valorization Strategies for sludge and organic waste in the SUDOE region", will be financed through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and will run until 2023. This project focuses on fundamentally valuing two types of waste streams, such as urban sewage sludge and the organic fraction of urban solid waste (FORSU), both with a high content of organic carbon. The sludge produced in the treatment plant is precisely where the actions in Palencia are going to focus, scheduled for 2022. The aim is to promote the biofactory model in the capital's WWTP, which will turn the facility into a technological platform to valorise urban sludge and organic waste in order to obtain resources and products with high added value. Another of the biofactories that will participate in ECOVAL is the Ourense WWTP, managed by Viaqua, a Suez Spain company, a group of companies to which Aquona belongs. Regarding the optimization of bio-waste management at the city level, the Portuguese city of Porto will be the first modeled case study that will later be replicated in the cities of Palencia and Toulouse. Thus, work will be done to optimize and create synergies between the urban water cycle and that of waste. In this second, it will not only optimize collection, promoting separation at source, in line with new legislative requirements, but also generate a new value chain, which in turn minimizes odor problems and the costs associated with its collection and management. The impact on the environment of this project will be remarkable since, only in the area covered by the project, 136 kg of organic waste are generated per capita per year, thus being able to follow new alternative treatment routes so that these waste are used as resources. Transnational cooperation to promote a new model of environmental management To develop this model of environmental management of organic matter, partners from the SUDOE region (Spain, Portugal and the trans-Pyrenean French districts) with experience in the different stages of the waste value chain will accompany Cetaqua, who will provide the necessary skills to ensure the viability of the model. These are the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Fundación Patrimonio Natural de Castilla y León, the Fundación Empresa-Universidad Gallega, the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Toulouse, Nereus, Aguas do Tejo Atlántico and the Municipal Enterprise of Environment do Porto. In addition, up to 29 entities from the same region have committed to the project and will participate as associated entities. Among them are from public administrations, such as the Xunta de Galicia, the Junta de Castilla y León and the City Council of Palencia, to users of final 'bio' based products such as REPSOL, including producers of highly usable organic waste such as Vego Supermercados SAU. The consortium will work from the collection of the waste to the commercialization of the final product, through the development of innovative biotechnological processes and integrating multidisciplinary aspects of a legislative, economic, market, environmental or social perception type.