Background Europe is among the world’s largest producers and consumers of pulp, paper, and cardboard. More specifically, the Lucca paper district is the largest European industrial cluster with an overall production of 1.2 million tonnes of tissue paper and 950 000 tonnes of paper for packaging (75% and 40% of the total Italian production respectively). A large percentage of waste paper is recycled. However, although the transformation chain is highly optimised, recovered paper contains a share of materials that cannot be reused and are discarded. This scrap makes up some 7% by weight of the recovered paper and constitutes pulp waste, which is mostly composed of mixed plastics. All pulp waste currently produced (100 000 t/year in the Lucca district alone) is disposed in landfills or burnt in incinerators with significant and unsustainable environmental and economic impacts. Objectives The overall objective of LIFE ECO-PULPLAST is to reduce to zero the amount of paper mill pulp waste sent to landfills and incinerators. In order to reach this goal, the project will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of an innovative technology to recycle pulp waste into new plastic compounds and products, creating industrial symbiosis between the paper and the plastic sectors. The identified technology has already shown good performance in recycling mixed plastics from other industrial wastes. Moreover, laboratory-scale tests conducted on pulp waste have produced promising results. Specific project aims are to: Demonstrate the applicability of the technology at industrial scale, including the establishment and testing of a demonstration production line designed specifically for the characteristics of pulp waste; Produce plastic euro-pallets to be reused within the same paper district, creating a local circular economy; and Reduce the environmental impact due to the current transportation of pulp waste to incinerators and landfills as well as the impacts of the related disposal.In addition, by replacing common wooden euro-pallets, which require large amounts of natural raw materials, with reusable plastic pallets from recovered waste materials, the project addresses the EU’s strategy for a resource-efficient Europe.