AMMAN — The University of Jordan (UJ) has announced that it will participate in the co-financed EU project CEOMED, which is working towards the sustainable management of open market waste.

The project, which involves six partners from five different countries — Spain, Italy, Greece, Jordan and Tunisia — with a total budget of 3.1 million euros, aims to reduce municipal waste generation, promote source-separated collection, and ensure the optimal exploitation of organic components by recovering energy and recycling nutrients, a UJ statement said on Tuesday.

The project will train concerned local stakeholders, such as consumers, sellers, the informal waste-collecting sector, scholars, farmers and technical and administrative staff, to contribute to improving waste management, according to the statement.

Furthermore, the project will lead to the design of new waste management plans in the cities of Amman and Sfax in Tunisia that focus on and address the waste produced from fruit and vegetable wholesale markets.

Following a circular approach, the organic fraction of waste from markets will be treated with anaerobic digestion, a biological process. The produced material will be used as fertiliser in farms that provide fresh produces to the local markets, the statement read.

The project is estimated to benefit the managers of two local markets in Amman and Sfax, with over 900 businesses using the markets daily to buy and sell fresh products, 2000-3000 customers, 90 technical and administrative staff from the municipalities of Amman and Sfax and farmers who use the fertiliser produced from the organic waste, according to the statement.

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