The European Week for Waste Reduction

The European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) is the biggest Europe-wide initiative promoting the implementation of awareness-raising actions about sustainable resource and waste management during a single week. It encourages a wide range of audiences (public authorities, private companies, schools, civil society as well as citizens themselves) to get involved.

Since 1 July 2017, the EWWR is coordinated by the EWWR Steering Committee. The project was originally launched in 2009 under the European Commission’s LIFE+ programme, which co-financed the project until mid-2017.

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The European Week for Waste Reduction aims to mobilise as many actors as possible to implement awareness-raising actions on waste reduction, product reuse and materials recycling.

The actions implemented in the EWWR are addressing the “3Rs”: Reduce waste, Reuse products, Recycle material.

ACR+ is a member of the EWWR Steering Committee and acts as the EWWR Secretariat, coordinating the campaign at European level.

From 2009 to June 2017, the EWWR was funded under the LIFE+ Programme of the European Commission, first under the coordinator of ADEME, then of ACR+ from 2013, with several ACR+ members as partners in the project. At the end of June 2017, the LIFE+ programme financing of the EWWR ended. Nonetheless, the EWWR continued its mission to reduce waste under the supervision of its new EWWR Steering Committee (find out more here) which includes several ACR+ members and is managed by ACR+.

In the 14^th edition, 36 coordinators across 30 countries coordinated and promoted the EWWR on their territory, which resulted in mobilising thousands of Actions Developers that implemented 16,129 actions across Europe and beyond. Every year sees the increase in the number of participants in the EWWR. So far the EWWR has reached a total of over 136,000 actions implemented since its first edition in 2009.

There are three ways of taking part in the European Week for Waste Reduction:

• Participant: individual or a group;
• Action Developer: public authority, association, NGO, business, educational establishment, another body or an individual citizen;
• EWWR Coordinator: public authority competent in the field of waste prevention.

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The actions implemented in the EWWR are addressing the “3Rs”: Reduce waste, Reuse products, Recycle material. The “3Rs” represent the options which should be considered first when elaborating a waste management strategy.

Reduce – strict avoidance and reduction at source;
Reuse – reuse and preparing for reuse;
Recycle – waste sorting and recycling.

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A broad variety of communication tools has been developed in order to help Coordinators and Action Developers to promote and implement actions in the scope of the EWWR. These tools are available on the EWWR website and include promotional posters, exhibition panels, web banners, shopping lists, a guide of good practices and much more! Targeted communication toolkits have also been designed to help reach specific target groups.

Additionally, each edition of the EWWR focuses on a particular theme. To encourage the implementation of actions on this topic, numerous tools are specifically developed, including various factsheets, support documents and a new poster.

Every year, the EWWR publishes several newsletters and press kits to share its achievements with the European citizens. The latest news about the EWWR can also be found via its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

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The EWWR is led by the EWWR Steering Committee (ESC). The ESC members for 2021 are:

• ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (BE), acting as the EWWR Technical Secretariat of the EWWR
• ADEME, French Environment & Energy Management Agency (FR)
• A.I.C.A.*, International Association for Environmental Communication in Italy (IT)
• A.R.C.*, Catalan Waste Agency in Catalonia (ES)
• Balearic Islands, Ministry of the Environment and Territory (ES)
  
• Bruxelles Environnement - Leefmilieu Brussel*, public administration for environment and energy in the Brussels Capital Region (BE)
• EIT Circular Economy Community, consists of five Knowledge and Innovation Communities–  or “KICs” – namely EIT  RawMaterials, EIT Climate-KIC,EIT Food, EIT Manufacturingand EIT Urban Mobility
• EMWR, The Eastern-Midlands regional Waste Office (IE)
• European Commission
• European Committee of the Regions
• Lipor*, Intermunicipal waste management of Greater Porto (PT)
• VKU, German Association of Local Utilities (DE)
• The Principality of Monaco, Environment Directorate (MC)
• WasteServ Malta*, waste management company in Malta (MT)

If you are interesting in joining the EWWR Steering Committee, visit this page.

* ACR+ member

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Don’t hesitate and take part in the EWWR!

More information:
Serena Lisai
Virginia Amate Padilla
Solène Padeletti