Biowaste Valorization for a Circular Bioeconomy and Sustainable Society

Dear Colleagues,

Urban waste has become one of the most challenging environmental problems in today's world owing to unprecedented urbanization and industrial activities. The global amounts of annual waste generation were estimated to be 2.01 billion tonnes in 2016 and are expected to reach 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050. The waste sector is a significant player in global GHG emissions (~5 percent), driven primarily by open dumping and disposal in landfills without landfill gas capture systems. Globally, 37 percent of waste is landfilled, while 33 percent is openly dumped, posing a severe threat to environmental sustainability as well as a slew of other challenging issues in society. Ironically, 80 percent of global waste is not recycled, resulting in a loss to resource recovery potential. Therefore, biowaste valorization is an attractive approach that offers a range of promising alternatives to disposal/or landfilling of waste. Valorization techniques, such as composting, vermicomposting, anaerobic digestion, anaerobic fermentation, gasification, pyrolysis, co-processing, etc., add value to waste. The recovery of value-added products, including materials, chemicals, and energy, supports global sustainability, which relies on a low carbon footprint, renewable resources, renewable energy, waste reduction, decreased pollution, GHG reduction, ecosystem and human health, sustainable agriculture practices, the reclamation of degraded land, improved crop yield, etc. Biowaste streams are well aligned and play an important role in the transition towards a circular bioeconomy, which entails improved resource management and the reintroduction of the end waste product into the production cycle to close the loop, leading to waste minimization. Biowaste can also produce many value-added by-products via different biorefinery platforms, further fueling the circular bioeconomy, such as bioplastics, biopolymers, bioenergy, and biochemicals. Adopting and implementing these biowaste valorization technologies in developing nations is seen as critical for improving global sustainability.

In this context, this Special Issue, entitled 'Biowaste Valorization for a Circular Bioeconomy and Sustainable Society,' aims to present cutting-edge information on various approaches to biowaste valorization, optimization and challenges, value-added products, and their role in socioeconomic–environmental sustainability. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

• Biowaste application in agriculture (as compost, vermicompost, biosolid/sludge, fly-ash, biochar, digestate, direct land application);
• Wastewater reuse and agricultural sustainability;
• Biowaste amendments—plant biochemical, physiological, and economic yield attributes;
• Biowaste amendments—soil microbial ecology;
• Biowaste amendments—nutrient cycling;
• Restoration of marginal and degraded lands via biowaste-based amendments;
• Restoration of polluted and agricultural lands via biowaste-based amendments;
• Biowaste-to-energy conversion technologies, their optimization, and economic viability (anaerobic digestion, anaerobic fermentation, gasification, pyrolysis);
• Biorefineries in circular bioeconomy and their techno-economic viability;
• Biorefineries–circular bioeconomy–environmental sustainability nexus;
• Policy, societal, technological, and economic aspects of biowaste valorization.

Dr. Rajeev Pratap Singh
Prof. Dr. Megharaj Mallavarapu
Dr. Vaibhav Srivastava
Dr. Surindra Singh Suthar
Prof. Dr. Vinod Kumar Garg
Guest Editors

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