REthinkWASTE

The main objective of REthinkWASTE is to provide public authorities with a plug and play model based on the pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) and know-as-you-throw (KAYT) paradigm.

Project funded by the European Commission under the LIFE programme, 2019 - 2022.

Highlights

On 19 February 2020, ACR+ hosted waste management practitioners to discuss taxation and awareness-raising to improve separate waste collection. After hearing about almost a dozen cases of municipal efforts to use PAYT and its information-based counterpart Know as You Throw (KAYT), participants reflected on the cases during a workshop. They concluded that, so far, PAYT has not managed to completely solve the inherent injustice of taxation, because certain communities like newcomers to cities continue to be disadvantaged; that the environmental benefits of PAYT and increased rates of separate collection need to be well and frequently communicated to residents for PAYT to work; that, in some cases, PAYT and KAYT are schemes that can pay for themselves; and that the social, environmental, and economic benefits of these schemes are very closely interlinked.

THE PROJECT

THE PROJECT

The goal is to increase separate collection of waste, reduce residual waste per capita and boost the recovery rate, whilst simultaneously cutting the average household waste bill. This will be pursued by adapting waste management plans and addressing other drivers (e.g. regulation, financial plans, waste management service contracts), based on a combined approach of PAYT and KAYT.

The projects specific objectives are to test the concept of KAYT in four local systems (in 51 municipalities in central Veneto managed by Etra, in Sant Just, Spain, and in Bitetto and Varese, Italy) side by side with the PAYT approach. Also, it aims to incorporate the PAYT and KAYT paradigm within the municipal waste management regulations of the four pilot sites, with the final goal of reducing the yearly quantity of unsorted waste produced and increasing the tariff spread between virtuous and underperforming citizens. To finish, the project will provide about 230 municipalities in the EU with customisable waste strategies, service schemes and business plans to trigger a change in mindset among policy-makers and civil officials, which will, in turn, spark a shift from a traditional tariff system to a variable one (PAYT) combined with a pioneering persuasion approach (KAYT).

ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITIES

ACR+ will contribute to find synergies with other EU funded projects and capitalize from experiences from its network, in order to properly set the state of the art about PAYT/KAYT schemes. ACR+ will then involve some of the local authorities among the members to test the decision support system (DSS) which will have been developed as part of the project activities. Furthermore, ACR+ will coordinate the setting up of a toolkit composed by 6 modules and tutorials that will be implemented to coach at least 50 municipalities in 5 EU regions (mainly in Mediterranean and South-East Europe). The project dissemination will be also in the focus: on top of regular communication activities, ACR+ will organize a media forum and the project final conference (both events will take place in Brussels).

PARTNERS INVOLVED

PARTNERS INVOLVED

REthinkWASTE’s project leader is ETRA, Energia Territorio Risorse Ambientali (IT), and its project partners are:

ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (BE)
Bitetto, Municipality of Bitetto (IT)
Sant Just Desvern, Municipality of Sant Just Desvern (ES)
Varese, Municipality of Varese, Lombardia (IT)
ARC*, Agència de Residus de Catalunya (ES)
ATA, Assemblea Territoriale d'Ambito ATO2 Ancona (IT)
IFEL, Istituto per la Finanza e l'Economia Locale (IT)
ARS, ARS Ambiente Srl (IT)
0 LCA, 2.-0 LCA consultants ApS (DK)
ARPAV, Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e Protezione Ambientale del Veneto (IT)

*ACR+ member

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