ACR+ News
Circular Economy Working Group | First meeting
4 November 2014, Brussels
In the morning, an introduction to the EU Commission Circular Economy Package by Michel Sponar was followed by the presentations of 5 front runners in terms of circular economy strategy. Valentina Caroli from the City of Ferrara, Barbara Dewulf from Brussels Environment, Maurice Golden from Zero Waste Scotland, Eric Kniaz from the Regional Council of Nord-Pas de Calais and Mieke De Schoenmakere from Flanders shared with the audience their experiences. They showed that circular economy can be applied to different contexts and levels of governance.
All the participants were then invited to a participative and interactive workshop dedicated to a reflection around objectives, priorities for guidelines, sectorial themes, best practices and challenges. The participants agreed on the elaboration of general and sectorial guidelines based on good practices and methodological aspects, with the help of an advisory committee composed of different stakeholders. The participants, being aware of the need to share and exchange information on the topic, agreed to elaborate an internal (ACR+ members) and external (wider public) communication strategy regarding the WG outputs.
As a reminder, this working group is developed on the basis of several principles: the multi-R hierarchy, a territorial hierarchy, innovative business models, multi-stakeholders partnerships and the essential role of local and regional authorities. Its aim is to help local and regional authorities (LRAs) to elaborate a circular economy strategy towards resource efficiency on their territory.
PRESENTATIONS & PARTICIPANTS
Click here to view the presentations and access the list of participants.
Please note that these documents are available only for members of the Circular Europe Network.
Morning session: presentations
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Afternoon session: working groups
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Experiencing a growing waste production, SYBERT - local authority in charge of waste treatment in Besançon, France - and its members have decided to commit on a global plan to reduce this waste production, increase reuse and recycling and reduce the incineration of residual waste and of ultimate waste storage. "Waste on a diet" aims to achieve three goals by 2015:
- a 25% reduction in the weight of residual household waste to reduce from 217 kg / year / capita in 2009 to 150 kg in 2015;
- an increase of material recycling (recycling and composting), rising to 55% recycling, or an increase of 17 points in 5 years (38% in 2009);
- the control of costs, that is to say, to limit the increase of the fees charged to the user and remain below € 90 per capita in 2015.
To achieve these objectives, SYBERT will rely on several actions that fall into two main areas:
- reduce waste and local treatment of organic matter;
- increase material and organic recovery in waste.
At the halfway mark of the Project, SYBERT’s gamble to reduce residual household waste is all but won, but “Waste on a diet” has reached some interesting levels of engagement and waste prevention awareness, together with, among others, collective composting and sorting rate.
More information on the Project, its objectives and outcomes is available online at http://sybert.fr.
The last “Waste on a diet” Newsletter is also available for download.
Two Thematic Working Groups (TWGs) have been created since ACR+ extended its activities to the Mediterranean in November 2012. The TWGs will make contributions to the “knowledge pool” of ACR+, especially in the MED area. They will bring in required knowledge, as well as institutional, financing and policy related inputs to respond to the needs of the Local and Regional Authorities.
TWG 1 "Management of priority waste flows"Plastic bags are omnipresent and often excluded from recycling schemes. They are a symbol of a consumer-driven, throw-away society, the environmental impact of their resource use and production phase is important and they often end up in landfill, or as litter.
The first thematic working group meeting on the management of priority waste flows, animated by Brussels Region on 25 March 2013, discussed the instruments existing to tackle and reduce the negative impact of plastic bags. Experiences regarding plastic bags management were shared and recommendations for proper management of this specific waste stream were formulated throughout the session, attended by 24 participants.
Download the programme of the meeting. Download the list of participants. Download the conclusions from the workshop. Download the Plastic Bags Report, released after the workshop.
Policy texts:
Los Angeles - Ordinance - ban (EN) Maroc - Loi sur l'utilisation des sacs en plastique (FR) Catalonia - Voluntary agreement (EN) Ireland - Environmental Levy (EN)