EU PROJECTS

WaterProtect

The WaterProtect project ran from June 2017 until September 2020. It developed new solutions and tools in 7 Action labs where water pollution (nutrients and/or pesticides) from intensive agriculture may affect the quality of the water for drinking water production. WaterProtect relates to the Horizon 2020 Work Program under the topic ‘Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy’ and addresses the Topic: Water farms – improving farming and supply of drinking water.

NMWE’s involvement

As a proud member of the consortium led by VITO, NMWE’s role in the project was to showcase some of its members’ best practices in the field of source protection. Indeed, natural mineral and spring water producers have long standing experience protecting the environment around their water sources to maintain the pristine qualities of their natural mineral waters and spring waters.

NMWE showcased the close cooperation maintained between farmers, local communities, NGOs and natural mineral or spring water producers to reduce point source and diffuse pollution at catchment scale.

More information on the project: https://water-protect.eu/

Polymark

Polymark is a three-year research project funded by the European Commission that has developed a new technology which enables the identification and sorting of polymers, including PET, in the high-value plastics waste stream. The Polymark project aims to maximise the value from recycling and the re-use of PET as valuable resource, while meeting EU rules on the re-use of food contact and non-food contact PET. The technology that has been developed successfully distinguishes between food-contact plastics and non-food contact plastics in order to further optimise the high-value waste stream and ultimately increase a more valuable use of these materials.

More information on the project: https://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid=50229

See video on Polymark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJsW1Laab0

Details	Nestlé Waters Switzerland launched the ECO-Broye programme around the sources of Henniez in 2009, working closely with local partners such as farmers, foresters, businesses and authorities in order to preserve the natural quality of the groundwater. In a region with intensive farming, sustainable agriculture using zero pesticides and chemical fertilisers has been implemented on 120 hectares in the immediate catchment area. Over a 2,400 hectares in the wider surroundings, Nestlé Waters promotes biodiversity with ecological networks and fauna corridors. In 2016, a biogas plant (run by a partner company) was installed that converts 30,000 tonnes of manure from 25 surrounding farms, together with coffee grounds collected from Nespresso capsule recycling, into renewable energy. This supplies 1,500 households with electricity, and part of the generated heat is used by the adjacent Henniez bottling plant. In return, the farmers receive a highly efficient fertilizer and over 3,000 tonnes of CO2 eq. are avoided. In 2021, the AgrEauConseil programme was launched, to work with local farmers to reduce their use of pesticides, providing advice and support around methods of regenerative agriculture (cover crops, no ploughing, mechanical vs. chemical treatment, etc.).
Brand	Henniez
Company	Nestlé Waters
Area covered (km2)	25.2
Date initiated	2009
Date of completion	Ongoing
Web link	‚Henniez

EU PROJECTS

WaterProtect

NMWE’s involvement

Polymark

ECO-Broye and AgrEauConseil programmes, and biogas plant