Conference in Brussels on 5 June 2025 highlighted how best practices and instruments have succeeded across Europe and what the EU can do to help expand them faster.
The final LIFE BIOBEST event, organised as an official EU Green Week partner event, gathered over 60 participants in Brussels. The event brought together representatives from European Union institutions; regional, and local officials; waste company representatives; civil society organisations and academia working on bio-waste management.
The event took stock of all LIFE BIOBEST activities and learnings since the start of the project in 2023. During this time, LIFE BIOBEST has produced a series of publications on best practices and efficient instruments, the data behind these successes, and the key policies that have enabled Europe’s best performing bio-waste management systems – with the aim of inspiring and facilitating replication of these models across Europe.
The event saw speakers from across Europe present on local best practices for increasing the collection and treatment of bio-waste, such as:
- Milan (Italy), which proves on a yearly basis how even the most densely populated cities, with high levels of tourism in a multi-cultural context, can achieve impressive results through a well-designed system, ongoing education and economic incentives to reduce residual waste generation.
- Catalonia (Spain), where the Waste Agency for the region presented their pioneering tax refund system for municipalities – where revenues from the landfill and incineration tax are redistributed to local entities based on the quality and quantity of bio-waste collected and treated. The tax fund is used to provide annual grants for the implementation and enhancement of local bio-waste collection systems, as well as for investments in biological treatment facilities.
One of the most important materials born out of LIFE BIOBEST was the recently published Comprehensive Guidance for effective bio-waste management in the EU, with key policy recommendations to help close the gap between current practices and potential capture rates – addressing the fact that only 26% of kitchen waste is currently collected separately in the EU. A summary video presenting the key recommendations and measures of the LIFE BIOBEST project is available with subtitles in 11 EU languages.
The feasibility/practicality of implementation of those main recommendations was examined by local frontrunners and bio-waste experts in the event’s panel discussions. Lessons learned for the future of bio-waste management in Europe included:
- EU legally-binding targets on the quantity and quality of the bio-waste captured along with improved monitoring systems.
- Implementing of a set of economic and fiscal instruments – such as increased landfill and incineration taxes or tax refund schemes – to increase the cost-competitivity of bio-waste management.
- Key measures to support the production, marketing, and application of high-quality compost and digestate in agriculture, landscaping and the growing media industry.
- Cascading governance and knowledge transfer to the local level.
Gemma Nohales, project coordinator, Fundació ENT: “A key lesson learned from the project and the final event is that economic and fiscal instruments are essential for realigning incentives and encouraging authorities to establish or improve separate collection and treatment systems. Achieving cost-effective and competitive bio-waste management, especially in comparison to residual waste, is crucial to transforming the current scenario and meeting recycling and landfill targets.”
Other key LIFE BIOBEST materials
Among other LIFE BIOBEST materials to support local and regional authorities are:
- Decision support trees, which function as a tool for municipalities and regional authorities to evaluate their specific difficulties and context, and pairing them with resources and recommendations from the project.
- A Decision Support Web Tool, designed to help authorities, consultants, and waste operators simulate and compare bio-waste management scenarios by evaluating their environmental, economic, and social impacts.
- A proposal for quality standards for bio-waste entering biological recycling facilities.
- A set of guidelines on bio-waste separate collection, governance and economic incentives, quality compost and digestate, and communication and engagement practices.
About LIFE BIOBEST
The LIFE BIOBEST project, funded by the European Union, brought together experts from Fundació ENT, the Consorzio Italiano Compostatori (CIC), the Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (ACR+), the European Compost Network (ECN), and Zero Waste Europe (ZWE). This project ran for 30 months. www.lifebiobest.eu.