Professionalising the Recycling of Recovered Nutrients into Fertilisers

Keywords: recycling, product stewardship, EUFPR, circular economy.

The recovery of both mineral and bio-based nutrients provides significant opportunities for locally based fertiliser suppliers to better meet the needs of customers, society and the environment. However, several challenges need to be overcome if this is to be achieved on a substantial scale. Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) competencies such as hygiene, product stewardship and process safety, and an understanding of the requirements of regulatory frameworks need to be strengthened to ensure that operations are made in full compliance with applicable regulations. Improvements in these areas will in turn add value and improve the ease of distributing fertilisers containing these materials into the supply chain.

Yara is developing expertise in the sourcing, handling and processing of these types of recycled materials into marketable products, encountering and overcoming challenges along the way. This paper will review our experiences so far and draw out practical learning points that will be of interest to delegates. We have found that many suppliers of recovered materials have little awareness of the requirements and issues. In Europe, most of the challenges arise from implications stemming from the EU Fertilizing Products Regulation (FPR). Using recovered nutrients always leads to an extensive conformity assessment, which needs to be understood.