PROJECT PRESENTATION
Urban Soil 4 Food
The Urban Soil 4 Food will test a model of urban soil-based economy circle in order to increase local food self-sufficiency and to minimize the city’s environmental footprint. The aim is to use cities’ internal waste – particularly excavated materials from construction sector – as input material to produce recycled, standardized and certified soil for meeting cities’ needs, and notably to be re-introduced to the ground in order to improve soil quality and increase food production.
Partnership consists of City of Maribor, Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, E-institute for comprehensive development solutions, Aktiviraj se Development of social projects and promotion of active life association, Snaga – Infrastructure and Public Service Providers, Wcycle Institute Maribor, Deltaplan – service and consulting company and Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute.
A pilot system for urban soil production including wastes from different sectors will be tested, and urban community gardens will be developed using the standardized soil produced. In parallel, food distribution will be structured around the creation of an urban food chain and local urban food labels, and an Agri Living Lab will be set up where different experiments relating to social innovation, urban environment and agriculture will take place.
The project seeks to achieve the following results
- Change of material flows from currently unused (landfilled) to recycled and reused within the City of Maribor will lead to:
- decreased amount of currently landfilled waste, specifically reduction of biological and mineral waste
- production of different types of soil to be used for urban agriculture, parks, roadworks, constructions…
- production of energy (590 kWh) to be used for the needs of operation of soil production
- Change of food flows from imported to locally produced will lead to:
- establishment of 7.398 m2 of new urban gardens for public use
- establishment of local labelled food
- established food chain from local farmer to local consumer
- decrease of greenhouse emissions
- Enabling circular economy transformation change of society will lead to:
- established Agri-living lab will bring circular economy closer to the people
- workshops will increase people’s involvement and interest to open innovation
- SMEs will get support for development of innovation and for working in the field of circular economy
The project started in December 2017 and will last at least until 2021.
