ACTIVITIES

The project outputs include the development of guidelines for the establishment of permanent fora for dialogue between youth organisations and local authorities to promote circular economy practices, the development and implementation of training programmes and activities for young people in the field of the circular economy, Open Educational Resources (OERs) for young people to support the occupational profile of a circular economy youth facilitator, and of a web application to guide young people in setting up initiatives around the circular economy.

ACR+ led the production of the first project output, namely the guidelines for the establishment of permanent fora for dialogue between youth organisations and local authorities to promote circular economy practices. The guidelines were developed through desk research on current literature by project partners and then tested through the organisation of local fora in Italy, Wales, UK, France, North Macedonia and Greece.

ACR+ also shared its expertise on circular economy with the partnership and work on the creation of OERs and the development of the web application.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

CEYOU's project leader was Pontydysgu Limited, Bridge to Learning - Educational Research (UK), and its project partners were:

• ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (BE)
• ACP, Active Citizens Partnership (GR)
• UCSA*, Ufficio Commune Sostenibilità (IT)
• Y-E-N, Youth Express Network (FR)
• CID, Centre for Intercultural Dialogue Association (MK)

* ACR+ member

HERITAGE CITIES

The project focused on waste management in Heritage Cities, as there are many in our continent.The solutions and policies proved feasible in INTHERWASTE were transferable to most heritage but also non-heritage cities in EU and the solutions and policies proved feasible in Heritage Cities were feasible in less demanding urban environments. In addition, the visibility of Heritage Cities worldwide helped duplicate the solutions and policies identified in the project in many other cities.

ACTIVITIES

As advisory partner ACR+ was in charge of providing expertise to the partnership in the different stages of the project, helping to consolidate the knowledge base.

ACR+ also organised a Capacity Building event to train partner cities representatives in the use of different waste monitoring tools for their management at city level (Pre-waste, Miniwaste, R4R, the EWWR Food Calculator and others).

In addition, ACR+ was coordinating the communication activities of the project, ensuring the visibility of the project and programme and the dissemination of good practices and policies. This included the launch of the INTHERWASTE twitter account: @intherwaste; the maintenance of the INTHERWASTE website; the creation and maintenance of a newsletter as well as other communication and information activities.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

INTHERWASTE's project coordinator was SADECO (Sanitation Cordoba, ES) and the four municipalities involved were:
•    Krakow (PL)
•    Porto (PT)
•    Ibiza (ES)
•    Tallinn (EE)

ACR+ was acting as advisory partner on the project and provided expertise to the partnership, as well as coordinated the communication activities of the project.

GUIDELINES

The guidelines developed in the frame of the project are meant for public authorities and waste companies in charge of managing urban bulky waste. They present the main outputs of the URBANREC project in a comprehensive way and provide information for the implementation of URBANREC’s bulky waste management solutions. The guidelines provide an overview of bulky waste in Europe, present data and information collected during the project, and detail its different outcomes that can help improving bulky waste re-use and recycling rates.

ECO-INNOVATIVE AND INTEGRAL BULKY WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The waste treatments considered in the project include:

• rebonding and chemical glycolysis for the PUR materials, to prepare renewable adhesives;
• needle felt to obtain isolation panels from textiles;
• fibre reinforced composites from textiles;
• wood-plastic composites (WPC);
• catalytic hydro-gasification with plasma for mixed hard plastics to obtain chemicals or fuel.

These treatments were optimised and implemented at industrial level thanks to the collaboration of the URBANREC partners which include top EU level research institutes, and companies interested in obtaining novel eco-friendly products from waste, under a circular economy approach.

POLICY & LEGAL RECOMMENDATIONS

The project consortium also produced a list of policy recommendation covering six important aspect of bulky waste management: 

General framework:

-Harmonised definition;

-Promoting preserving collection.

Quantitative targets:

-Separate target for preparing for reuse;

-Minimum recycled content.

Designing sustainable bulky items:

-Extending Ecodesign Directive;

-Addressing hazardous substances.

Quality standards, certification, information and warranty:

-Extended warranty for products;

-Mandatory information;

-Standards and certification;

-Extending EU Ecolabel.

Collection and handling of bulky waste by reuse professionals:

-Access to reusable items;

-Exemption to environmental permitting.

Public procurement and other economic instruments:

-Support to GPP criteria for bulky items;

-Social clauses in tenders;

-Using VAT.

Full policy brief available here.

ACTIVITIES

ACR+ was involved in the collection of information on bulky waste management and coordinated the development of a guide on the implementation of a bulky waste strategy. Furthermore, ACR+ organised and animated a working group on bulky waste legislation to produce concrete recommendations for improved legislation at EU level.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

Four different geographical areas – Northern, Mediterranean, Eastern and South-Eastern – are represented by the 21 organisations which are partners to the project. The partners also represent the whole bulky waste value chain and include research organisations, SMEs, larger industrial organisations and local authorities.

URBANREC’s project coordinator is AIMPLAS (Asociación de investigación de materiales plásticos y conexas, ES) and its project partners are:

• FHG, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Angewandten Forschung EV (DE)
• CENTEXBEL, Centre Scientifique & Technique de l’industrie textile Belge (BE)
• IOS – PIB, Instytut Ochrony Srodowiska – Panstwowy Instytut Badawczy (PL)
• IYTE, Izmir Institute of Technology (TR)
• ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (BE)
• IZNAB Sp. z o.o., Iznab Spolka Z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnoscia (PL)
• ECOFRAG – ECORETORNO, Ecofrag-Mentation Europe S.L.(ES)
• BPP, Blueplasma Power S.L. (ES)
• RAMPF, RAMPF Ecosystems GmbH & Co. KG (DE)
• RESCOLL Technology Centre of Materials, RESCOLL (FR) Eurospuma, Eurospuma - Sociedade Industrial de Espumas Sintéticas SA (PT)
• DELAX, Colchones Delax SL (ES)
• PROCOTEX, Procotex Corporation SA (BE)
• Vanheede Environment Group (BE)
• IMOG, Intergemeentelijke Maatschappij voor Openbare Gezondheid (BE)
• CVI, Consorcio Valencia Interior (ES)
• OVAM*, Oprnbare Vlaamse Afvalstoffenmaatschappij (BE)
• Diputación Provincial de Valencia (ES)
• URZAD - City of Warsaw*, Miasto Stołeczne Warszawa (PL)
• Bornova Municipality (TR)

*ACR+ members