Published: 18 June 2013

Introduction to the Project

Municipal Waste recycling in Europe: Despite common waste and recycling goals, there are still wide disparities between European Regions

R4R (Regions for Recycling) is an INTERREG IVC project which aims at promoting regional contributions to the European Recycling Society, by allowing local and regional authorities to make consistent comparisons thanks to a common method and exchange of transferable good practices related to local instruments in order to improve recycling performances.

The European Waste Policy aims at preventing waste generation and optimising the use of waste as resources, in order to move towards a European Recycling Society. Regional and local authorities are key actors that concretely implement this concept: many legal, economic and educational instruments are to be decided at this decentralized level. Yet these local authorities face many new challenges with waste management: while generated quantities are continuously increasing, they must comply with stricter legislation and set more complex waste management systems encouraging more active involvement of the population.

Therefore, it is relevant for these local authorities to share good practices and develop benchmarks between them. In 2010, ACR+ created with its members the European decentralised Observatory of municipal waste recycling performances, where local authorities can compare their performances through the use of common concepts and indicators. The R4R project will capitalize on these first efforts towards a better knowledge and monitoring of performances and completes it by identifying conditions and instruments that allowed achieving high performances for waste recycling based on sound comparisons of local data. Its main objectives are to optimize data collection and benchmark on recycling performances as well as to link them with legal, economic, educational, technical and organisational waste management tools allowing high recycling performances. Economics instruments improving recycling performances such as pay as you throw systems, tax on disposal, incentives and extended producer responsibility schemes will be especially analysed.

To expand the dissemination of the project and the collection and exchange of data, an online tool will be set up and free to use for European local and regional authorities. It will allow users to input data, assess recycling performances and have access to benchmarking and good practices related to their context. Several training sessions and EU conferences are planned to improve the participation of European territories.

Project Partners have been selected among public entities involved in waste management, monitoring or planning, presenting a variety of experienced and less experienced territories. To ensure that every partner is actively involved whatever its experience in waste management is, each less experienced partner will be assisted by an advanced one through peer review process throughout the project. Each partner will set an implementation plan stating how outcomes will be used, either by transferring identified good practices or by promoting efficient local instruments.

A website has been built to provide additional information and to publish the outputs of the project. conference handouts

Project Partners:

ORDIF ( Ile de France) ,

ACR+, BE?

OVAM, BE?

Odense Waste Management, DK?

Lisbon City Council, PT ?

Efxini Poli, (Greek network of municipalities), GR?

Limerick County Council, IE?

Styrian Provincial Government, AT ?

Tallinn City, EE ?

ARC, Waste Agency of Catalonia, ES ?

Municipality of Sofia, BG ?

City of Zagreb, CR

More information

R4R website

R4R brochure

R4R mid-term conference in Odense (May 2013)

R4R networking event in Athens (December 2012)

R4R launch press release (April 2012)

R4R communication plan

Contact:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Project Manager), Tel: +32 2234 65 07

Published: 18 June 2013

The European Observatory on municipal waste performances is an ACR+ project launched in 2010 focusing on the analysis of selective collection performances across different regional/local authorities in Europe.

Waste management monitoring at local and regional level is a key issue especially when considering the current recycling targets (50% by 2020) set by the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, and the review of the said targets.

Interested in joining the European Observatory on municipal waste?  It is simple, become an ACR+ member and join the Observatory!

More information:

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Published: 18 June 2013

ACR+ has a keen interest in the collection of quantitative data on waste management at local and regional level in Europe, as well as the links with recycling performance rates. The subject is complex but identifying quantitative recycling targets and best practices incites interest among LRAs, particularly considering the current recycling targets (50% by 2020) set by the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, and the review of the said targets.

In response to the growing need for quantitative data, in 2010, ACR+ launched a European Observatory of municipal waste performances, focusing on the analysis of selective collection performances across different regional/local authorities in Europe.

The ACR+ Observatory’s objective is sharing experiences and demonstrating best practices amongst different cities and regions to help them to:

•    achieve higher selective collection and recycling rates,
•    improve communication with citizens and stakeholders,
•    reduce the negative environmental and financial impacts.

ACR+ Observatory activities

To achieve this objective, ACR+ developed a Waste Data Matrix, completed by approximately 17 members of the Observatory with their data for 2009. This first set of calculation with a harmonized methodology led to interesting comparisons and conclusions summarized in the Observatory Report published in early 2013 (available for ACR+ members only).

All Observatory members agreed to continue this work of data comparison. They also agreed on future work orientations, for instance household/assimilated waste, bulky waste, packaging waste, etc.

ACR+ organises Observatory meetings on a regular basis in order to assess progress, share expertise and define new working areas:

• Launch event (Paris, 16-17 September 2010)
• 1st Observatory working group (Brussels, 1st February 2011)
• 2nd Observatory working group (Brussels, 17-18 April 2012)
• 3rd Observatory working group (Odense, 14 May 2013)
• 4th Observatory working group (Tallinn, 2 December 2013)

The ACR+ Observatory work has also led to a “spin-off” activity: the Regions for Recycling project (R4R), involving a number of ACR+ members, as well as other cities and regions in Europe. The R4R objective is to develop an online tool aiming at helping local and regional authorities to compare their selective collection performances and identify good practices on selective collection and recycling.

Call for participation

Currently, the Observatory is comprised of the following members:
Ile de France, Flemish Region, Catalonia, Barcelona, Milan, Brussels Region, Liège Province, Porto Region, Lisbon, Odense, Besançon, Pamplona, Oeiras, Milton Keynes, Aalborg, Limerick County.

For information about the ACR+ Observatory and the methodology applied, please contact Philippe Micheaux Naudet at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published: 18 June 2013

Sharing good practices to reduce waste  

Pre-waste is a three-year European project (2010-2012) whose aim is to help cities and regions to improve their waste prevention policies. The project involves 10 partners in Europe, committed to sharing their expertise in waste prevention and waste management. The objective is to give decision makers the opportunity to go beyond recycling and to be ever greener when they develop their waste or environmental policies.

The outputs

In particular, Pre-waste aims to deliver:

a common methodology for developing efficient regional waste prevention policies, in terms of planning, implementation and monitoring,

27 best examples of waste prevention actions implemented by local or regional authorities and 9 feasibility studies on a selection of these best practices,

a range of indicators and a web tool allowing the assessment of the efficiency of waste prevention actions and monitoring.

ACR+'s involvement

ACR+ plays a key role in the project, as an expert for the development of the common methodology, the web tool and the identification of waste prevention best practices. ACR+ also acts as a communication manager for the project and is in charge of disseminating its results throughout its European network. In particular, ACR+ will have the chance to publicise the project's progress during the European Week for Waste Reduction, in which the network also plays a key role.

A website has been built both to provide the partners with a knowledge sharing platform and to publish the outputs of the project. Other dissemination tools include a Facebook page, a brochure and a leaflet.

Where are we now?

After three years of successful implementation, the Pre-waste project is coming to an end. Several experts meetings took place, hosted by the project partners, in Roquetas de Mar (Spain, October 2010), Brussels (Belgium, March 2011) and Karlskrona (Sweden, June 2011), Bucharest (Romania, October 2011), Sofia (Bulgaria, February 2012), Tampere (Finland, June 2012), Malta (October 2012), where the partners had the opportunity to agree on the waste prevention good practices the framework of indicators for the monitoring of waste prevention actions, the Pre-waste webtool to monitor waste prevention actions and the methodology to prepare and implement waste prevention strategies.

The Pre-waste final conference took place in Brussels on 7 November 2012 and gave the opportunity to present the project's outputs to more than 200 European experts.

Take a look at the presentations made during the conference.

The Pre-waste partnership

The 10 Project partners are public entities directly involved in the planning or in the implementation of waste management policies according to their competences: Marche Region – Project Leader (IT, ACR+ member; with the help of SVIM acting as Technical Secretariat), ACR+ – Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and for sustainable Resource management, ORDIF – Ile-de-France Region Waste Management Observatory (FR, ACR+ partner member), IBGE – Brussels Environment (BE, ACR+ member), Municipality of Roquetas de Mar (ES), Municipality of Sofia (BG, ACR+ member), Public Cooperation Department of Ilfov County (RO), Municipality of Karlskrona (SE), Tampere Regional Solid Waste Management Ltd (FI) and WasteServ Malta (MT, ACR+ member).

The Pre-waste project is co-funded by the INTERREG IV C programme of the European Commission.

What are the main benefits of prevention for local and regional authorities?

• reducing their costs in terms of waste collection, treatment (recycling or incineration) and eventual disposal,
• reducing energy consumption needed for the above mentioned operations,
• reducing CO₂ emissions and the release of other pollutant substances in the air, the water and the ground.

More information: Pre-waste project synthesis report and www.prewaste.eu

Press releases:

• 07.11.2012 - Pre-waste final conference in Brussels: experts from Europe find out more on waste prevention practices and tools
• 11.07.2012 - More than 20 best practices on waste prevention to inspire cities and regions and feed their waste prevention plans
• 01.04.2011 - Waste prevention workshop in Brussels meets great success
• 10.11.2010 - Good practices and indicators on waste prevention: Pre-waste partners agree to push the process forward
• 15.07.2010 - How to prevent waste: The first answers from Pre-waste partners
• 26.04.2010 - More good practices for less waste: The Pre-waste project starts now

Newsletter:

• The Pre-waste in brief #7 - March 2013
• The Pre-waste in brief #6 - October 2012
• The Pre-waste in brief #5 - June 2012
• The Pre-waste in brief #4 - February 2012
• The Pre-waste in brief #3 - October 2011
• The Pre-waste in brief #2 - May 2011
• The Pre-waste in brief #1 - October 2010

Contacts:

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As ACR+ is providing its expertise with Pre-waste, contributing to the development of tools for lowering the ecological footprint of public authorities, ACR+ has created a guide for setting up low environmental impact events.

• Download: Pre-waste low environmental impact guidelines for events (Note: for Members only)