Roadside grass and natural grass as green raw material for potting soil

The Netherlands has a lot of roadside and natural grass that not much can and is done with. In order to get more value out of these grasses, a number of Limburg parties are jointly looking for a solution, including Bio Treat Center and substrate producer Kekkilä-BVB.

Limburg collaboration for sustainable solutions

Bio Treat Center focuses on upgrading seemingly worthless waste streams from biomass to useful raw materials. "It often proves difficult to make sustainable processing of biomass commercially and logistically feasible. Therefore, Bio Treat Center brings parties together and tries to develop an earnings model," explains director Ton Vonken.

Kekkilä-BVB is also looking for sustainable solutions, explains director Guido Linders. Kekkilä-BVB transports raw materials over relatively long distances. That has implications for transport costs and CO2 emissions. "So we try to get our raw materials from our own region where quality, safety and sustainability are paramount," Linders says.

From potting soil to mushroom cultivation

The Limburg parties have found a technical solution for the conversion of mown roadside grass and natural grass into an ingredient for a number of substrates of Kekkilä-BVB. The developments of this are still in their infancy and initially the product will be available for a limited customer group, such as hobby gardeners and for tree cultivation. Research is underway into how the grass can be used for mushroom cultivation, among other things. "It will be two years before we can go to market with this," Linders said. But the technique lends itself to more than just grasses. Linders: "It can also be used for biomass such as crop residues."

Source: Dagblad de Limburger