Bioeconomy proposes an opportunity to transform the bio-waste from a cost into a resource. Waste biomass offers a potential way to overcome the concerns over using food materials for nonfood purposes regarding bio-based production and there is growing acknowledgment of the benefits of using wastes and residues as feedstock.

Used cooking oils (UCO) or recycled vegetable oils were the second most important feedstock for biodiesel production in 2015 in the EU, with the Netherlands, the UK and Germany being the largest EU producers of biodiesel manufactured from used cooking oils. It has attracted a considerable interest for aviation biofuels production. Industry analysts estimate that more than million tons of UCO was consumed in Europe in 2013. Of this volume, about 700.000 tons are estimated to come from within the EU, as there are substantial imports of used cooking oils, largely coming from the US. Other oils originating from plants include tall oil, residue from pulp industry, palm fatty acid distillate and side-streams of the production of Omega-3-fatty acids from fish oil. Finally, waste from potato processing industries (potato peel) has drawn interest in being used as a bioethanol feedstock in recent years.

Waste animal fat is also used for biodiesel production in multi-feedstock production facilities of small and medium-scale, referred to as Animal Fatty Acids Methyl Esters (FAME), which displays better engine performance than conventional biodiesel according to recent surveys.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) can also be converted into liquid biofuels or used for heat and power generation. European households dispose of around 110-150 million tons of biogenic material annually. The different MSW streams are:

• Recyclable materials (metals, paper and plastics): used for manufacture of recycled products;
• Organic fraction (putrescible food waste, garden waste): may be converted to biogas via anaerobic digestion. It is estimated that around 44 million tons of household and garden waste will be available in 2030. Estimations of food waste quantities are extremely difficult. The European Commission estimated a total of 89 million tons of food waste produced in 2010 in the EU, including manufacturing food waste (35 million tons), household food waste (38 million tons), retail/ wholesale food waste (4 million tons) and food service/ catering food waste (12 million tons);
• Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) (the fraction of MSW that cannot be recycled, e.g. shredded textiles, wood, paper, card and plastics): SRF can be combusted or converted to syngas, and then be used for bioenergy or be processed into advanced biofuels. Estimates of the wood fraction of MSW are in the range of 26-57 million tons per year. Of this, around 40 % is recycled into other products and around 50 % is burned for energy, leaving just under 10 % available as potential feedstock for advanced biofuels.

Food waste is a part of the organic fraction. It is not suitable for direct energy generation through conventional burning processes because it has high moisture content. Biological technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD) are more suitable, and there is the technical possibility of co-digestion with other substrates such as manure and slurry. But even in this case the processing is expensive and technically complex due to the heterogeneity of food waste derived from diffuse sources and the need of separation/ pretreatment. The diffuse sources of food waste and the fact that in most cases food waste is blended with other types of waste from households constitute a great challenge with respect to collecting, transporting and separating this waste stream, as well as to locating possible processing plants. Source separation and collection of food waste would provide the greatest potential for its use. Finally, a further potential barrier to the mobilisation of food waste as a source of energy is the fact that increasing legislation and policy efforts are being made in the EU to prevent and reduce food waste. This may limit possible investments in relevant process infrastructure and technologies.

Finally, any organic residues / biological waste materials can potentially be converted to advanced biofuels by thermochemical, biochemical or chemical processes. Examples of such biomass feedstock include waste from beer and other beverage production and waste from bakeries etc. The facilities that use this kind of feedstock follow a biorefinery approach improving the conversion of biomass and waste streams into products and energy.