An on-land management and valorisation approach for biomass associated with landing obligation compliance

• Published in: Marine policy Vol. 116; p. 103506
• Main Authors: Pérez-Martín, Ricardo I., Antelo, Luis T., Vázquez, J.A., Mirón, Jesús
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2020
• Subjects: Biomass; Discards; Landing obligation; Marine biorefinery; Valorisation; Discards; Biomass; Landing obligation; Valorisation; Marine biorefinery
• ISSN: 0308-597X; 1872-9460
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.04.010

In compliance with the new legal framework defined as the landing obligation (LO), established in Article 15 of the Common Fisheries Policy by the EU, all the individuals of species subject to the total allowable catches regulation must be kept on-board, landed, and quantified against their corresponding quota. In addition, specimens with a size below the minimum legal size cannot be used for direct human consumption. Therefore, appropriate solutions should be implemented to accordingly manage this new biomass as well as to avoid its waste, making the best possible use by designing value chains to valorise it. To select the best valorisation alternative in each case, it is necessary to know in advance a set of relevant aspects such as the number of different species and the quantities that will actually arrive at port, the existence of available infrastructures in the proximity of fishing ports, and the real market possibilities of the products obtained. In this work, an integrated on-land management and valorisation approach is presented for new marine biomass that lands in 2019 when the LO is fully implemented. The facility in this approach is called the Integral Discards Valorisation Point. The processes executed in this pilot plant were performed by applying a bio-refinery concept for management and upgrade. •Full compliance of Landing Obligation will imply that significant quantities of fish (previously discarded) will be landed.•The definition of a pilot plant (the iDVP) for the valorization of biomass related to the Landing Obligation is presented.•The obtention of products for human consumption is focused on frozen fish mince block.•Complete value chains for obtaining products of interest not targeting direct human consumption have been developed.•Several species have been used in the iDVP’s pilot productions (e.g. blue whiting, Atlantic and horse mackerel, hake, etc.).