More profit, less waste!

With this slogan, a BioBoost campaign has been launched to increase the awareness that much more is possible with the green residuals of the horticultural industry. Various activities are organised by the project partners in the participating horticultural regions in Belgium, the Netherlands and in the UK. The campaign lasts until the end of 2019.

Why?
The horticulture produces large quantities of 'green waste', such as stems and leaves, as well as unmarketable fruit and vegetables. This is now thrown away, composted or converted to green biogas. But also high-grade applications are possible. We are at the beginning with that, but more and more becomes possible. The campaign pays attention to this and brings beautiful examples to the spotlight.

Great potential
A third of the food produced is currently wasted. About half of it when growing crops. Fruit and vegetables are discarded by overproduction or for a different size or shape. In addition, there are large waste streams of leaves and stems. More and more is being done to avoid wastage, but the residual flow from horticulture will always remain very large. So there is a huge potential of raw materials available for innovative applications.

Win-win
The use of green horticultural residuals for new applications is positive for the environment and for combating climate change. On the other hand, high-quality use of these residual flows can lead to additional income for the horticultural sector and can strengthen its economy.

Varied activities
The target group of the campaign are gardeners and the general public in the three horticultural regions. The activities are tailored to them. A few examples. In the Netherlands, the Greenport West-Holland organises theme weeks around horticulture and building materials, around horticulture and insect breeding and around horticulture and paper & textiles. In the UK there will be information stands at various events and information evenings are organised and in Belgium a theme article will be published in the newspaper and several meetings will be held. The project also creates a short information film. This is to be found soon on the BioBoost website.

Publication campaign in magazine “Fokus Agri&Food” July 2019, read more (Dutch).