The URBAN-WASTE project progresses towards it next stage – implementation and monitoring of measures and actions identified to improve waste management in our 11 pilot cities and beyond with Nicosia hosting the 4th Mutual Learning event on this very topic this time.
Hosted by the Municipality of Nicosia, the pilot cities and regions came together for a two days long set of meetings and workshops which had the aim to ease the kick-off of the next stage of the project. While the second edition of Communities of Practices taking place in the pilot cities and regions during the month of October where local stakeholders are identifying measures for improving waste management in the pilots, the Mutual Learning open event the first day and the Municipality Forum the second the pilots had the opportunity to look into the implementation and monitoring phase.
The Mutual Learning event brought to Nicosia external speakers in order to diversify the good practices and experiences already existing across Europe. After the hosts opened the meeting and welcomed the participants, one could hear more about Nicosia’s waste management practices from Maria Thiseos, a health inspector at the Nicosia Municipality. The external speakers included Athena Papanastasiou of the Cypriot Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment and Fabrizia Sammito, who presented two like minded projects BLUEISLANDS and Consumeless, respectively, both targeting littering in coastal areas and marine litter. Alessio Romeo of the French EkoVerde, on the other hand, presented a solution of their own – EkoTri and FontEko, which was developed for camping sites and camping resorts and which enables visitors an campers to be supplied with drinking water, cleaning products and other essentials and at the same time, to depose of their waste in the most environmental friendly way . This concept comes from Vendée in France where 354 camping sites exist, the largest number among all French regions.
The day was enriched by a workshop on business model design and co-design. This workshop provided by Consulta Europa and ORDIF and had the aim to identify the potential added values of the measures the pilots are going to implement in economic, social and environmental terms, as well as to develop the competences and the network the pilots might be needing and define potential users and costumers.
The second day, which was entirely dedicated to the URBAN-WASTE partners, started with a study visit to the MBT plant located in the south of Cyprus, in the city of Larnaca which also serves the city of Paralimni. Upon return, Lorenzo Bono of Ambiente Italia gave a lecture on implementation and monitoring of the chosen measures which served as a valuable input for the pilots before they return home and continue with the implementation of the project.
All in all, this meeting proved that the pilot cities and regions are on track when it comes to the project’s timeline and that more exciting news, updates can be expected, as well as challenges as a lot of different stakeholders will be involved in the next stages. The next open Mutual Learning event and Municipality Forum will be taking place in Nice, France in January 2018.
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