Porto, Portugal — October 14, 2022
IncBio has joined the Recicla+ project as a co-promoter, part of the broader Sustainable Plastics initiative funded under Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). Led by the Logoplaste Innovation Lab, the initiative brings together a consortium of 40 companies and 11 research institutions working to advance circular economy solutions within Portugal's plastics sector.
The Recicla+ consortium — which includes Codil, Bio4Plas, MC Sonae, BICAFÉ, PIEP, and IncBio — is focused on building a closed-loop recovery model for coffee capsule waste. The project aims to develop fully recyclable capsules, recover plastic waste from used capsules, and transform the spent coffee grounds generated during production into biochar through a pyrolysis process.
IncBio's role within the consortium is to provide engineering expertise and develop the pyrolytic conversion system that will transform spent coffee grounds into biochar — a stable, carbon-rich material with direct application as a biofertilizer in domestic and agricultural settings.
For IncBio, participation in Recicla+ represents a further expansion of its thermochemical conversion engineering capabilities — applying the same core pyrolysis principles previously developed for biomass liquid fraction recovery to a new organic waste feedstock. The project reinforces a consistent engineering thesis: that pyrolysis, properly engineered, can extract commercial value from virtually any carbon-rich waste stream.
José Marques, CEO of IncBio, stated: "Recicla+ is a strong example of how pyrolysis engineering can anchor a circular economy model. We are not just processing waste — we are closing a loop that runs from coffee production through to agricultural soil improvement. That same philosophy of extracting value from what others discard is at the core of everything we build."
The project is now underway, with IncBio's engineering team beginning design work on the pyrolytic conversion system.