Valorsul's innovation programme received a total of 63 applications from 27 countries and 4 continents in the three categories of the competition. The award ceremony was attended by the Secretary of State for Energy, Prof Dr Maria João Pereira.

Valorsul, the company responsible for the treatment and recovery of urban waste in the Lisbon area and the West region, held the Valorsul 2024 Open Innovation Awards ceremony yesterday, 25 September, as part of its 30th anniversary celebrations, where three innovative ideas capable of transforming the waste sector in Portugal were awarded in the competition categories. The event was attended by the Secretary of State for Energy, Prof. Dr Maria João Pereira, who chaired the awards ceremony and closed the ceremony, as well as personalities from the sector, experts and representatives from various public bodies in the field of the environment and waste management.

Valorsul's innovation programme, launched in June in partnership with the consultancy Innovation by Kaizen, opened three categories for competition - New digital and Artificial Intelligence solutions in waste management; New generation packaging sorting; Maximising the potential of incineration slag - to which 63 projects from 27 countries on 4 continents applied. Aimed at academia, start-ups and companies in the waste management sector, the first edition honoured the three most innovative and transformative ideas, in which Valorsul will invest 150,000 euros to implement pilots in its operation.

In the first category, the big winner was the company WasteAnt, with an innovative technology, based on Artificial Intelligence and sensorisation, for characterising and managing the quality of waste in incineration.

In the second category, Greyparrot won with an advanced packaging waste analytics solution based on Artificial Intelligence.

And in the third category, NRC/Aerinnova, part of the VHB Groep group, won with a differentiating solution capable of maximising the extraction of metals from incineration slag.

‘I believe that innovation is a key area in the waste sector. And this is the next leap in the sector - the ability to improve internal processes by associating automation and artificial intelligence with our operation,’ emphasised Marta Neves, CEO of Valorsul. ‘In this Open Innovation acceleration programme we selected three areas of Valorsul that we believe could benefit from innovative processes and, from that point of view, we challenged society to bring us solutions. The number of applications proves the success of this first edition, and I believe it will bring numerous benefits to both our company and the applicant organisations. Congratulations to the winners and a special thank you to all Valorsul employees for their dedication and commitment over the company's 30 years, always striving to go further.’

Closing the ceremony, the Secretary of State for Energy, Prof Dr Maria João Pereira, pointed out that ‘The 30 years we are marking today are a good starting point for us to face up to our national successes, but also to the ambitious challenges we have ahead of us, in a journey that will be far from simple. Because our country really must step up its efforts to reduce waste production, increase the percentage of recycled waste and, with this, drastically reduce the percentage of waste deposited in landfill. It is therefore a challenge that must be tackled across the board, from production, consumption, collection, treatment, recovery, recycling and reuse,’ he added: ’We cannot expect to be able to solve our problem and meet the ambitious European targets by 2030 only downstream, by strengthening our capacity to respond to waste management and its treatment. This is absolutely fundamental, but alongside this national effort, we must also tackle the issue at its source, encouraging our economy and consumers to be part of a new economic model: one that is characterised by circularity, reuse, re-utilisation and recycling.’

Valorsul is thus giving shape to its values of innovation and efficiency by launching an open innovation programme and an accelerator for state-of-the-art projects and technologies that will help transform Valorsul's business and boost the Waste Management sector in Portugal.