Trends and Opportunities of Bivalve Shells’ Waste Valorization in a Prospect of Circular Blue Bioeconomy

Daniela Summa, Mattia Lanzoni, Giuseppe Castaldelli, Elisa Anna Fano and Elena Tamburini
Additional contact information
Daniela Summa: Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via L.Borsari 46, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
Mattia Lanzoni: Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via L.Borsari 46, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
Giuseppe Castaldelli: Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via L.Borsari 46, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
Elisa Anna Fano: Italian Society of Ecology, Parco Area delle Scienze, 11/a., 43124 Parma, Italy
Elena Tamburini: Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via L.Borsari 46, 44121 Ferrara, Italy

Resources, 2022, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Bivalves aquaculture is already considered a very sustainable for of food production and might become an essential pillar on which to develop future global food security. However, with the increase in production, a correspondingly great amount of waste will be produced all around the earth, principally in the form of shells, which can represent up to 90% of the fresh mollusk weight. Nowadays, shell waste has no notable use and is commonly regarded as waste, often dumped in landfill, or thrown back into the sea, causing a significant level of environmental concern, and resulting in a loss of natural and valuable resources. Bivalve shells are mainly formed by CaCO 3 , giving them the potential to become a promising secondary raw material for several applications, from a circular economy perspective. This paper aims to review the scientific literature of the last twenty years and the principal recent trends in shell waste reuse, describing applications that are already in place on a large scale in agriculture and livestock, soils, water and wastewater remediation, biodiesel production and biofilters, as well as niche applications that now simply have the potential to be scaled up.

Keywords: circular economy; bivalves; shell waste; reuse; waste valorization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/5/48/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/5/48/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:11:y:2022:i:5:p:48-:d:815340

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().