Ecodesign of new circular economy scheme for Brewer's side streams

When designing a new circular economy system, many aspects must be considered in order to benefit from all possible environmental improvements. The selection of the right market or use of the resulting product is of paramount importance to ensure the final implementation of the solution. With this purpose, this study has undertaken the selection of a market that could absorb the large amounts of by-products generated in breweries, the optimization of the logistics for the collection of by-products, and the ecodesign of a valorisation process and the facility needed to set up the entire value chain. This analysis has resulted in the ecodesign of a valorisation process of brewery's side streams aiming at the production of ingredients for the formulation of aquaculture feeds. Life Cycle Assessment has been used to find an efficient and sustainable processing scheme and to ecodesign a Model Recovery Plant that uses the brewery's by-product as second-generation feedstuff to produce ingredients for aquafeed. The overall ecodesign of the new circular economy scheme for Brewer's side streams reached a reduction of the environmental footprint of 6% in the resulting aquafeed products that account for the biggest part of the aquaculture footprint.