In December 2019, the COLLECTORS consortium met in Thessaloniki, Greece, for a week of working group and meetings. The final Regional Working Group meeting was held on 10 December 2019, bringing together nine representatives of various European cities and regions to discuss decision-making processes, and the upcoming COLLECTORS guidelines to be drafted next semester.

The following day, the Municipality of Thessaloniki welcomed the COLLECTORS conference “Municipal waste management in the circular economy: how to reach high quality recycling?”. About 130 participants benefitted from the experience of 20 panellists including ACR+ members Bruxelles Environnement, presenting the case of Brussels, and FADI, presenting the state-of-play of recycling in Romania.

Partners also discussed the upcoming guidelines for helping local players to move forward with their municipal waste strategies, and the policy recommendations targeting EU and national regulations. They will use the 12 latest COLLECTORS case studies of waste collection systems which include cost-benefit analyses, environmental impact assessments, and overviews of the outcomes of the sorted fractions for recycling.