A succesul initiative – industrial symbiosis applied in Romania

The new Industrial symbiosis approach to business can be defined as a way of sharing services, utilities, expertise and knowledge, production capacities, and by-product resources among diverse industrial actors in order to add value, reduce costs and improve the environment footprint of anthropic activities. The concept has been incorporated in a LIFE+ Project (ECOREG), financed by EU and active since Feb 2009 in the Suceava County. (ECOREG, 2011).
Specific activities included the creation of a Project Advisory Group, including most important business managers and authorities in the area, the organization of several Workshops each gathering managers form 40-50 organizations and leading to the identification of resources that can circulate among partners (wooden waste, demolition waste, oil waste, production capacities, transport facilities, laboratory expertize, etc.). A large data base was set up with the aid of the UK Partner in the Project (ISL-UK). Results of the Project include more than 500,000 tons of materials diverted from landfill, important areas of virgin forests saved, important reduction in GHG emissions, ca 40 new jobs, important quantities of fossil fuel spared, re-commissioning of some existing equipment.