\ Alta Tecnologia \ Area Science Park takes Refiber project to Bologna’s International Boat Show

Area Science Park takes part in the second edition of the International Boat Show from 30 October to 7 November, held at Bologna’s trade centre. The team is present with a stand showcasing the Refiber project, alongside Veneto-based Innovando srl, a company developing solutions for post-production and post-consumption waste management.

The Refiber project is a study of the technical, economic and legal feasibility of setting up a new collective national system for managing pleasure boats (12-24 m range).

The project team, is based in pavilion 22 at stand 11 all week: networking, seeking new partners from the boating sector and presenting the collective national system that Area Science Park and Innovando have been working on to visitors.

How to decommission and manage the disposal of end-of-life pleasure crafts is a significant environmental, as well as socio-economic, issue. For this reason, it requires a collective effort, and investment in researching and developing new green technologies. The materials left after a boat has been decommissioned – in particular fibreglass, which accounts for the largest proportion at 60% and is the most difficult to process – can be turned into a resource for developing new business models for the industry as a whole.

Refiber is looking at existing schemes such as the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) approach, starting with involving the pleasure-boat manufacturers and distributors themselves. The aim is to provide a concrete response to the environmental and socio-economic problem of illegal boat disposal, for which there is still no structured model.