EWWR

The European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) is a Europe-wide initiative aiming to promote 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.

The project is currently co-financed by the European Commission’s LIFE+ programme (2013-2017).
It was originally launched in 2009 under the same programme.

Highlights

Save the date! The 9th edition of the EWWR will take place as usual during the last week of November, from 18 to 26 November 2017.
The EWWR 2016 Awards Ceremony took place on 18 May 2017 at Casa Llotja de Mar in Barcelona as part of the final LIFE+ EWWR International Conference. There, the EWWR Jury rewarded the most outstanding actions of the edition 2016. Six winners were awarded, one in each of the Action Developer categories. They all happily came on stage to accept their well-deserved prizes. Discover the winning actions on the EWWR website.
The EWWR is actively preparing for the new phase of the campaign. In June 2017, the current financing of the European Commission’s LIFE programme came to an end. To continue its success story, the EWWR has set a new European Steering Committee (ESC) which will become the main decision-making body for the campaign. The first steps towards this new phase were made on 17 May 2017, in Barcelona, when the newly formed EWWR Steering Committee held its first meeting. It was a productive encounter where the EWWR Coordinators and the confirmed members of the Steering Committee talked about the future of the project.

The ESC is already running well with members from the European Commission and several EWWR Coordinators, including ACR+ members (ARC, WasteServ Malta, AICA, LIPOR and Eastern Midlands Waste Region). The invitation to become part of the ESC is open!

Curious to know what the EWWR has been up to for the past 4 years? Check this article!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: every action counts!

THE PROJECT

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 the leader of this project and it is acting as the European coordinator and Technical Secretariat of the EWWR.

Rvalue

In 2015 the EWWR was held under the patronage of the European Parliament and its president. In this 7th edition 40 coordinators across 33 countries coordinated and promoted the EWWR in their country/region, thus mobilising thousands of Action Developers who implemented more than 12.000 EWWR actions. Every year, more coordinators and action developers participate in the EWWR, having implemented more than 60.000 actions in total during the seven editions of the EWWR (2009-2015).

There are three ways of taking part in 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.

THE 3Rs

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.

ACTIVITIES

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 during its Prevention Thematic Days. 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. More information on the EWWR can also be found via its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

The EWWR is organised by five project partners:

ACR+, acting as the European coordinator and Technical Secretariat of the EWWR
ARC*, the Catalan Waste Agency (Spain)
AICA*, Association for International Environmental Communication (Italy)
IBGE-BIM*, Brussels Environment (Belgium)
NWMD, the National Waste Management Directorate for Hungary

* ACR+ member

Don’t hesitate and take part in the EWWR!

More information www.ewwr.eu