SeaClear2.0 will develop a holistic approach to address the full cycle of marine litter, towards the Mission to restore, protect and preserve the health of our oceans, seas and waters by 2030. To this end, we aim to prevent and reduce marine litter pollution, particularly plastics and microplastics, in the Mediterranean via (i) Community activation, citizen empowerment, and participatory practices for identifying site-specific measures for marine litter prevention and reduction, supporting the implementation of the WFD and MSFD; (ii) Scaling up and demonstrating the SeaClear2.0 system, an innovative solution with teams of autonomous, intelligent robots for effective monitoring and collection of marine seafloor and surface litter; (iii) Providing solutions for valorization of the collected litter via better sorting and recycling; (iv) Adding novel dimensions in policy making by providing evidence for new legislation and the implementation of existing rules to achieve Good Environmental Status and (v) Accelerating the uptake of our solution by demonstrating its scalability and replicability to the Mediterranean basin and beyond in three full-scale demonstrations, three pilot tests, and at least five associated-region projects. SeaClear2.0 impact ranges from the reduction of upstream and beach litter via public awareness and citizen activation; through effective litter monitoring using both robotic mapping and public reporting in a gamified app; to direct collection of at least 57% of existing litter in the areas covered by the robot teams, with options for valorization. The singular selling point of SeaClear2.0 is our unique blend of technological innovation (ii, iii), community-activation (i), and policy-making (iv). We achieve all this by exploiting consortium expertise in public engagement, policy-making, robotic perception and control, artificial intelligence, marine technology and operations, and litter sorting and recycling.

The main goal of the WoodCircus is to increase knowledge, raise awareness and improve conditions for an uptake of resource efficient processing and recycling in wood-based value chains, fostering increased competitiveness of the European woodworking sector. WoodCircus identifies, evaluates and disseminates the outstanding good practises in process efficiency, wood waste collection, management and recycling in the woodworking value chains in Europe with a focus on construction with wood. Achieving a thorough evaluation of the overall system’s performance and a validation of the most relevant transferable solutions, WoodCircus produces sound, critical evidence and tangible decision support information for market actors, stakeholders and policymakers. WoodCircus establishes a well-integrated network between wood processing industries and the waste management sector engaging excellence for future-oriented joint promotion of the wood sector in the Circular Bioeconomy. WoodCircus implements the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy and the EU Bioeconomy Strategy targets ensuring intelligent utilisation of forest resources and sets up an interface to the EC Raw Materials Information System and the JRC Bioeconomy Knowledge Centre . WoodCircus major outcomes are: 1) Good practice database; 2) Open competition on individual good practice showcases and award to SMEs; 3) Performance and sustainability assessment; 4) Validated best performing supply chain typology for broad transfer; 5) RDTI plan wood industries towards the Circular Economy;(6) White Paper including policy recommendations and communication strategies; 7) WoodCircus Network, established on solid commitments from partners and stakeholders for follow-up beyond the project lifetime. WoodCircus is based on a balanced mix of leading RTO and companies with proven expertise all along the woodworking and construction value chains including waste valorisation and associations at local, national and international level.

The goal of EcoReFibre is to develop and demonstrate innovative demos for environmentally sound and commercially viable recycling of end-of-life fibreboards, which currently have no commercially viable recycling methods. The quantities of fibreboard waste are growing exponentially in line with the growth in production capacity, and it is highly likely that more than 60 million tons of fibreboard waste have been created in Europe the last 5 years. This has caught the European recycling sector off-guard. EcoReFibre is crucial to Europe's wood-based panel and wood recycling sectors because of various inter-linked market challenges of the current situation for creating secondary materials from wood waste. EcoReFibre builds a strong pan-European consortium bringing together leading research institutes, companies and European associations who will develop and demonstrate a range of recycling technologies for waste fibreboard. Validation and demonstration of the technologies will take place in an operational environment as system prototypes (TRL7) or in the relevant industrial environment (TRL6). These include a sorting line that is able to efficiently sort post-consumer wood waste, extraction technologies for secondary materials (calibrated wood fines and wood fibres) from the sorted waste fractions, and conversion to valuable products, i.e. various fibreboard and insulation products, particleboard and novel biocomposites. As a major impact, the secondary fibres will substitute up to 25% of the virgin fibres currently used in the manufacture of new fibreboard. The economic viability of the technologies is achieved through a synergistic circular economy approach that exploits multiple valorisation pathways of secondary raw materials. The novel fibreboard recycling technologies are transferrable and exploitable for many other biobased industries. Environmental and social impacts and benefits are integrated into a life cycle perspective.