The WEEE (waste from electrical and electronic equipment) management chain has realised an explosion of fire incidences, caused by carelessly discarded batteries into either recycling bins or black rubbish bags, where they are easily damaged by sorting equipment and start to burn, endangering human lives, disrupting waste services and causing millions of Euros of damage (from €190,000 up to €1.3m per fire incident). The Grinner project aims at commercialising an autonomous AI-enabled robotic sorting system capable of detecting and removing waste containing batteries from current waste streams before they enter inhospitable-to-battery machines that crush and consolidate waste. The system will comprise (i) the fastest Energy-resolved X-Ray detectors in the market, (ii) an ML-enabled software module that will analyse X-Ray data and effectively detect waste containing batteries while passing through the waste flow and vision-based pick-and-place robot(s) that will remove the flagged WEEE. Project objectives: • Build an X-Ray data set of WEEE scrap. • Customisation of the X-Ray system • Develop the AI software module for detection of batteries within WEEE using X-Ray data. • Deploy a vision-based robotic solution capable of Picking-and-Placing WEEE • Develop, integrate and install a prototype system in a WEEE facility environment to conduct live trials and validate Grinner. • Explore the potential exploitation of Grinner as an economically viable, stand-alone product for recycling facilities.

Five tonnes of waste per capita are generated every year in the EU. These annual 2.5 billion tonnes of waste contain large volumes of valuable materials for Europe’s industrial base. Proper collection of waste is a pre-condition for their optimal recovery. The current trend of increasing higher collection rates is promising, but progress is uneven between Members States and between regions. Good regional practices have the potential to serve as good practice examples for other regions. So far, however, results of existing studies and good practices have not been effective enough in supporting the implementation of better-performing systems elsewhere. The main objective of the COLLECTORS project is to overcome this situation and to support decision-makers in shifting to better-performing collection system. COLLECTORS will therefore: (1) Increase awareness of the collection potential by compiling, harmonizing and presenting information on systems for packaging and paper waste, WEEE and construction products via an online information platform. (2) Improve decision-making on waste collection by the assessment of twelve good practices on their performance on: (1) quality of collected waste; (2) economics; (3) environment; (4) societal acceptance. (3) Stimulate successful implementation by capacity-building and policy support methods that will increase the technical and operational expertise of decision-makers on waste collection. (4) Engage citizens, decision-makers and other stakeholders throughout the project for validation of project results and to ensure the usability of COLLECTORS-output. The COLLECTORS consortium is well-equipped to achieve these impacts as it is directly connected to more than 30 PROS and 2000+ authorities spread across the EU. In addition, the project is embedded in the full secondary raw material value chain ensuring alignment with waste management, recyclers and producers.

The CEWASTE project contributes to an improved recovery of valuable and critical raw materials (CRMs) from key types of waste through traceable and sustainable treatment processes in the entire supply chain of secondary raw materials. As such, CEWASTE will address the specific challenge to secure the sustainable access to CRMs for the EU economy and objectives set by the EU action plan for the Circular Economy, the issue of illegal trade of wastes within the EU and to non-EU countries and the need to support the development of environmentally and socially sound recycling systems globally. Specifically, the project will develop, validate and launch a voluntary certification scheme for collection, transport and treatment facilities of key types of waste containing significant amounts of valuable and critical raw materials. To ensure a comprehensive approach and a robust result, the project will be developed along the following six specific objectives: Objective 1 - Understand existing recovery practice, standards and verification schemes; Objective 2 - Develop sustainability and traceability requirements; Objective 3 - Develop an assurance system and related verification procedures; Objective 4 - Validate the new voluntary scheme; Objective 5 - Ensure long term sustainability of the scheme; Objective 6 - Ensure a transparent stakeholder process.

DICE aims to develop and demonstrate novel, circular and environmentally sound solutions to design, collect, directly reuse, refurbish, remanufacture and recycle digital health devices (ePaper label, smart wearable sensor, smart pill box, endo-cutter), which will contribute to enabling a circular transition. Solutions will be implemented, tested and demonstrated in five healthcare ecosystems reflecting the geographical spread within Europe through community-engaged pilots in Norway, Belgium, Slovenia, Spain and Germany. DICE will contribute to mitigating the globally expanding health waste problem covering three material streams -electronics, plastics, metal- and alleviate shortage of critical and valuable raw materials, while protecting the health and safety of those involved in realising the circular economy. Exploitation of key outputs will be ensured by all partners throughout and after the project and will be further extended to adjacent sectors through existing networks and platforms within which the partners are represented.