The progressive implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive 91/271/EEC in all Member States isincreasing the quantities of sewage sludge requiring disposal: as reported in [1], in the EU-27, the current practices forsewage sludge disposal are landfill (18%), thermal treatment\incineration (23%), composting (7%), agricultural use (45%)and others re-uses (7%). Urban waste water and by-products can be reduced, indeed - this is one of the major challenges ofsustainable development - but not fully eliminated. This means that we have to deal with those waste materials, and try tofind for them a suitable, effective application, wherever possible, according to their prevalent features and potentialbeneficial effects. On the other side, this has to deal with potential environmental and health risks and has to be kept undercontrol both at the treatment stage and/or at the application stage, if the outlet of the treatment is not a “safe” product, yet.Proposers intend to move away from sewage sludge disposal as land filling, as this gradually has to be phased out by EU(Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC on waste), and agricultural use as fertilizers, as the latter presents stronglimitations coming from organic and inorganic pollutants that sewage sludge may contain. On the other hand, sludge thermaldrying for further re-use instead disposal, still needs considerable amounts of fossil fuel to provide the heat necessary to theprocess and thus remain an unexplored (but added-value potential) research and market area.The main scope of the SLUDGEtreat project is to prolong the life cycle of sewage sludge, by i) improving sludge quality andii) increasing the percentage of sludge dry matter up to 50% of solid content for high added-value re-uses (i.e. as energy,biomass), other than fertilizers.