BETA TC organises a session during the European Green Week on zero waste initiatives in the Mediterranean region.

In the framework of the Med4Waste project, the BETA Technology Centre of the UVic-UCC has carried out this Thursday the session “Power of capacity building schemes: moving towards a zero waste Mediterranean”, which was part of the programme of the European Green Week, organized, as every year, by the European Commission. The moderator of the session was Mercè Boy Roura, head of the Governance for Sustainability Area of CT BETA and coordinator of Med4Waste. The main objective was to show and learn from different experiences that are being carried out throughout the Mediterranean region to improve the capacity of waste management at different levels.

Joumana Sweiss, on behalf of the ENI CBC Med programme (which finances the Med4waste project) began the session by highlighting the direct connections between towns and cities in the north and south of the Mediterranean that have been created thanks to the implementation of several previous projects that have worked on very specific problems, such as the management of urban organic waste or the recycling of textile waste. He also stressed the need to improve the skills of people, especially young people, and to create new, more collaborative and cross-cutting approaches.

Aleix Valls, from CT BETA, spoke about some of the specific activities being carried out by Med4Waste, especially the online course on waste management and circular economy practices that has been developed with the support of the Rezero Foundation and which will soon be available on Ubiqua.

Noé Viedma, from the Medcities network, presented the accompaniment and technical support programme that Med4Waste is carrying out in six cities on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. These activities are allowing the local governments of these cities to have direct access to the knowledge previously generated in ENI CBC Med projects, such as DECOST, Med-INA or CLIMA, as well as resources to hire technical support for the improvement of their own waste management plans. He was accompanied by representatives from the municipalities of Deir Qanon El Naher in Lebanon and Mahdia in Tunisia.

Some of the projects that directly presented their experience during the session were Med-INA, which has been working to introduce new zero waste strategies in public policies, and REUSEMED, which has focused on promoting the culture of reuse as a circular economy strategy. A representative of SIRCLES, a project that has also been coordinated from Catalonia and that has helped to promote the creation of new jobs for young people in the field of municipal waste management, especially from the introduction of new community composting systems, also participated.

Finally, the session included a round table with the participation of Victor Carbajal, from CT BETA, representing the SIMIL Programme. With funding from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, SIMIL is a territorial initiative coordinated by CT BETA itself through which a programme of training and capacity building activities will be offered to local governments in central Catalonia in the field of waste management.