Recovering Organic and Inorganic Residues Through Biotransformation

The biotransformation of organic or inorganic residual materials, i.e. the process by which microorganisms or other biological entities can modify certain compounds through chemical reactions, already offers ways of recovering and treating co-products.

As part of its Residual Materials Management Polic (Politique québécoise de gestion des matières résiduelles), the Quebec government has decided to ban the landfilling of organic materials by 2020. This strategy has prompted industries, municipalities and public research centres in Quebec to work on innovative alternative ways of recovering organic waste.

Therefore, a series of initiatives have been launched in Quebec to recover organic waste, including the setting up of industrial biomethanization units in municipalities to bioconvert waste into biogas, and partnerships between certain paper mills and SMEs to biotransform industrial sludge into high value-added products. Other initiatives around the world have focused on the biotransformation of inorganic residual materials, such as the minerals contained in electronic waste or elastomers. However, whether for organic or inorganic materials, biotransformation processes remain complex and there are still many technological and/or economic challenges to be overcome.

The CRIBIQ has therefore decided to organize a conference on the biotransformation of residual waste, with the aim of highlighting the most recent developments regarding the:

• Optimization of the biotransformation of organic as well as inorganic residues;
• Implementation of new biovalorization methods for organic as well as inorganic residues;
• Challenges inherent to the industrialization of biotransformation processes for residual waste.

Renowned international researchers, industrial representatives and Quebec municipalities will be taking part in this conference.

See the program