Circi: Met in Slovenia to share experiences about side streams

Thursday, 9 March 2023

During March, funds of 8 times 15,000 euros will be announced for projects working with side streams. The Eyde Cluster and Future Materials were in Slovenia to share their experiences.

- Future Materials is often referred to as Norwegian Catapult's Sustainability Center, and every year we work with several companies that want to move from a linear to a circular process. Therefore, the invitation from the Eyde cluster was interesting to see how companies in Slovenia work with this process, says Siv Emanuelsen in Future Materials.

Last week she went to Slovenia with Stine Skagestad and Frank Spetland from the Eyde Cluster's secretariat, to meet partners in the Circi-project.

Learn to map side streams

- The purpose of the project is for them to learn from us how to map side streams and get this into a circular economy, says Stine Skagestad, who leads circular transformation in the Eyde Cluster.

Therefore, they had both physical project meetings and company visits. One company was Štore Steel which makes products based on scrap metal. These also look at the possibilities of using the dust in a circular process. The other company was a thrift store that was run as a social enterprise. The store redesigns clothes and furniture. The third was Techo, which is one of the partners in the Circi project. They develop new products, such as plastics, and rely heavily on side streams.

Options outside the box

- We believe that many of the possibilities are outside the box. We have seen that working interdisciplinary and looking for solutions there is good, says Skagestad.

The result of interdisciplinary thinking emerged during the workshop, where the well-known code-breaking methodology from the Eyde Cluster was used. The task was to look at some selected side streams from presented companies, and here some possible projects were discussed.

Made good contacts

- The company visits were educational and gave us an insight into how different industries worked with side streams and sustainable solutions. We also made good contacts, with perhaps future partners. And finally, - but not least, the experience of friendly Slovenian hospitality, says Emanuelsen.

During March, information will come out about funds for projects that work with side streams.