Background The environmental framework plan of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (ACBC) has established some specific objectives for 2012, such as reducing by 45% the amount of municipal solid waste sent to landfill, and valorising as much as possible biodegradable waste. In the ACBC there are two municipal solid waste treatment plants and six landfills. These facilities receive some 8 000 tonnes/yr of waste from wholesale markets and big food distributors and 7 000 tonnes/yr of food waste from small supermarkets mixed with household waste. An additional undefined quantity of food waste from the food industry ends up in waste treatment plants. Although some of these waste generators separate waste streams (e.g. paper, plastic, glass) to facilitate recycling, this is not done in 100% of the cases. Objectives The LIFE project proposes the development of a prototype to automatically separate the organic fraction from the packaging, thus increasing the amount of vegetable fraction that can be reused. Another key objective of the project is to design, prove and validate an action plan to make use of the vegetal food surplus generated in food retailing by transforming it into animal feed. The proposed approach involves demonstration of an innovative methodology to recover vegetal food wastes in a hygienic way. The project expects to achieve a recycling rate of more than 70% of the generated vegetable wastes, which is more than 7 000 tonnes/yr of fruit and vegetable waste, using a methodology that can be easily transferred to other European countries with a similar environmental problem. Other objectives include: A complete inventory of the vegetal wastes generated in the ACBC; Characterisation of the vegetal wastes (including nutritional and sanitary parameters); Definition of conditions and technology needed for vegetable meal production from waste vegetables; Development of an action plan to valorise vegetable wastes and produce meal for animal feed production; A full-scale demonstration of the new proposed management practices for vegetable fractions generated at wholesale markets, public markets, supermarkets and by the food industry; and Inclusion of the new raw material in the European Commission's catalogue for animal feed. Expected results: Reduction by 70% of the current organic waste volume managed at incinerators and dumps; Reuse of 7 000 tonnes of vegetable fractions as raw material for producing feed; Modification of the waste management plan of the Basque Country to enhance the new proposed management for vegetal fraction by-products;and The development of legislation to restrict the dumping of vegetable food fractions from the food industry and distribution into dumps and other urban solid waste deposit installations.