Background The European food industry generates some 89 million tonnes/yr of food waste across the EU-27, equivalent to 179 kg per capita. Unless preventive measures are taken, the European Commission forecasts that this figure will increase to 126 million tonnes/yr by 2020. In Spain, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), the food industry generates some 2 million tonnes/yr of vegetable and animal waste, of which, the Basque Autonomous Community generates some 25 000 tonnes/yr of vegetables, 30 million litres/yr of whey (from cheese production) and 80 000 tonnes/yr of meat products. In addition, some 1.71 million tonnes of manure slurry and 1.47 million tonnes of manure are also produced each year. Objectives The GISWASTE project will analyse the factors that affect the feasibility of food waste treatment facilities. It will develop a model capable of simulating the main impacts, establishing their order of importance and providing useful information about their expected profitability and viability, from social, economic and environmental perspectives. The objective is to develop a GIS-based tool for simulating the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of biogas and animal feed valorisation alternatives for vegetable, meat and dairy by-products of the Basque Country, to be used by waste-management decision-makers. The project will gather relevant data that could be used to expand the tool’s usefulness to encompass other EU regions and other valorisation options. The main goals of the project are: To facilitate waste-management decision-making amongst administrations and other organisations; To reduce the environmental risks of waste treatment facilities; To reduce costs by comparing the economic profitability of the different waste-management alternatives available through the GISWASTE tool; To improve the synergies between by-products in order to make the most of the proposed options and provide integrated and feasible solutions; and To stimulate the valorisation of food waste by promoting the establishment and development of new economic activities. Expected results: To define at least five (technical, economic or environmental) key factors (and assess their impact) for two different food waste valorisation options: animal feed and biogas; To assess the order of importance of these factors for each valorisation option; To collect and update data on food waste generation in the Basque Region for at least three different by-products (vegetable, meat and dairy wastes), making the data available to waste producers and public bodies; To produce at least three GIS format maps (one for each food waste by-product)with quantified information about the viability factors of the two valorisation options, as well as geographic information about the origin of the food waste; It also will include the geographic component for each food waste; To create a process for weighting the different viability factors and associated equations for both biogas and animal feed food waste valorisation options; and To develop software (the GISWASTE tool) for multifactorial analysis of the two different valorisation options. This software would enable decisions to be taken on vegetable, meat and dairy wastes in the Basque Region.