The Urban Environment Services Company (EMULSA Medioambiente) from Gijón, Spain, hosted the kick-off meeting of the European project Clear Cities: Promoting Carbon-Neutral Urban Waste Management Policies for Sustainable, Safe, and Resilient Cities on September 3–4, 2024. The project, which began in April 2024 and will run until summer 2028, connects stakeholders from Slovenia, gathered by the Slovenian project partner, the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RRA LUR), with partners and stakeholders from the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria.
The project’s goal is to improve waste management policies to establish more efficient models with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Partners will exchange best practices focusing on:
- Promoting waste reduction and recycling at the source for households and businesses;
- Encouraging emission reductions and improving operational efficiency in waste collection and transportation;
- Introducing improvements to waste sorting and treatment systems to minimize landfill waste by increasing reuse, recycling, and recovery and
- Exploring the integration of new technologies throughout the entire process.
Although the waste management sector has successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions in recent years, further efforts are essential to prevent setbacks caused by ever growing demands within the sector.
On a valuable study visit, the project partners visited an itinerant exchange point for reusable objects coordinated by EMULSA, which was on that day located in a central square. They gained detailed insights into the initiative and witnessed firsthand the enthusiastic participation of local citizens. EMULSA presented their ReusApp mobile application, which connects potential donors and reusers citywide, and emphasized the critical role of the physical exchange point in raising awareness about the app. They also learned about the logistics behind the scenes and the pivotal role of environmental educators in coordinating the exchange of items, informing donors and collectors (or curious onlookers) about the importance of reuse. Several partners highlighted the simplicity and high impact of this initiative, making it a highly replicable model for other cities.
