Ecoto(Mi)x LCA

The agricultural recycling of organic waste products (ORP) of urban, agricultural and agro-industrial origin is an important lever of the circular economy and sustainable development.

Nevertheless, repeated application of these PROs significantly increases the levels of trace elements (TE) and/or organic trace contaminants (OTC) in amended soils. Very little is currently known about the ecotoxicological impact of these contaminants and their mixtures, which limits our ability to produce a robust assessment of the overall impact of the practice of agricultural recycling of PROs.

By combining appropriate and complementary approaches (literature review, experiments, modelling and multi-criteria assessment of recycling scenarios), we are proposing, as part of the LCA-Ecoto(Mi)x project, to improve terrestrial ecotoxicity models for ETs, develop models for CTOs and establish models for ET-CTO mixtures, which will be integrated into the standard Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach and the USEtox model. 

The innovative and original character of the project will consist in revisiting the approach adopted by the USEtox model to integrate the specificities of the agricultural recycling of organic waste, such as the speciation and the behaviour of ET after spreading.