In April 2023, the UNLOCK project partners met in Opatija (Croatia) for the follow-up of the project activities, two years after it started. 

CIDETEC Surface Engineering (Spain), coordinates the UNLOCK project that will build a demonstration plant for the treatment and recovery of feathers from poultry waste. 14 partners from 7 EU countries are working together to transform waste from the poultry industry into bio-based products for agricultural applications. 

At the end of April, Bio-Mi hosted in Opatija (Croatia) the follow-up meeting of the UNLOCK project, two years after it started. During this period, an analysis of the main challenges facing the poultry sector has been carried out, with the aim of establishing a bioeconomy based on the revaluation of the feather that is currently generated as waste. UNLOCK partners will continue working on new value chains that have been proposed within the project.

In the coming months, the construction of a demonstration plant for feather processing will be undertaken in Poland. In addition, there are already a number of demonstrators of feather-based end products, such as agricultural films, nonwoven geotextiles, hydroponic foams and seed trays, which have been successfully tested for biodegradation in the field. These results are a first step in the valorisation of feathers proposed by UNLOCK.

The journey to transform traditional poultry systems to circular, sustainable ones has been initiated and the project partners are already working on the first-of-a-kind commercial biorefinery in Poland.

Building on the success of the KaRMA2020 project, UNLOCK aims to make further strides toward a more sustainable European agricultural sector.

You can follow the progress of UNLOCK on Twitter @UNLOCK_BBI and on LinkedIn UNLOCK_project. More details on the project’s objectives and achievements are available at www.unlock-project.eu and in the UNLOCK VIDEO.