This year's asparagus season has recently come to an end. Although the season fell far short of expectations for asparagus farmers, huge quantities of asparagus peels ended up in the waste. A research team at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts wondered whether these residual materials could not be put to better use in the sense of a biobased circular economy. A corresponding research project is now being funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Agriculture with around 100,000 euros and is being implemented at the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (IfBB).

Filler for biocomposite material

"SpaPlast" is the name of the project, the aim of which is to use asparagus peels in wood-plastic composites (WPC), i.e., composites made of wood and plastic fibers. Processed asparagus fibers could serve as fillers for such biocomposites. The research project is designing the necessary technical processing, but will also investigate the marketability and assess the actual sustainability of the process.

"At the IfBB of Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, we want to help promote the use of biogenic residues for biomaterials," says project manager Andrea Siebert-Raths, explaining the overarching goal. "This can increase sales markets, save costs, avoid waste and sustainably increase the social acceptance of biomaterials."

Great market potential in Europe

The WPC market segment alone has an annual market volume of around 260,000 tons in Europe. Demand for biobased raw materials is rising continuously - but these should not be produced in competition with food and animal feed production. This is why residual materials are of particular interest, such as green waste, harvest residues, coffee grounds, nut shells and now asparagus peels.

Lower Saxony's Minister of Agriculture Barbara Otte-Kinast outlined what a project success of "SpaPlast" could look like in practice when handing over the funding notification: "In early summer, you can sit on the terrace and enjoy the asparagus on your plate, while the asparagus peels can be found, for example, in the decking boards or other floor coverings. That's sustainable utilization of raw materials!"

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