The extractive industry has been considered one of Europe’s most significant waste streams. Given the ambition to move towards a circular economy, extractive wastes have the potential to be altered from a substantial environmental burden to valuable resources via the recovery of valuable minerals and critical raw materials (CRM), reprocessing, and reusing in various applications. Motivated by this, ValorWaste project was conceptualized to provide a holistic view under the reprocessing of extractive waste by addressing the following challenges: 

i) implement a comprehensive waste materials characterisation methodology to predict suitable valorisation routes; 

ii) assess the potential of sustainable mineral processing and hydrometallurgy techniques to valorise residues and recover CRMs and other strategic critical elements;
iii) design construction materials and chemicals that can integrate extractive waste in their composition; 

iv) identify the environmental impact of developed valorisation routes using life cycle assessment, hot spot analysis and risk identification; 

v) provide access for ML algorithms, simulation models and analytics to support process/products optimisation and promote data-driven decisions;

vi) identify business opportunities and challenges for the valorisation and integration of extractive waste in the materials construction industry; 

vii) promote sustainable practices and circularity for the raw materials industry. The project consortium is composed of 8 partners from University/Research Centres and four industrial partners, who have been selected based on their complementary expertise in terms of detailed technical competence in waste management and characterisation (INOE, UTARTU, AWIDA), mineral processing and hydrometallurgy (CUT, FEUP, HCT), construction materials and chemicals (UGR, HCT, SECIL, LIMAK and KALE), life cycle and impact assessment (MEERI PAS, UTARTU), data management and analytics (ASE, FEUP).