URBAN-WASTE: Urban strategies for waste management in tourist cities

was a 36 months project that developed and implemented eco-innovative and gender-sensitive waste prevention and management strategies in 11 cities with high levels of tourism. The main goal was to reduce urban waste generation and improve municipal waste management. The cities and regions participating in the project were Florence (IT), Nice (FR), Lisbon (PT), Syracuse (IT), Copenhagen (DK), Kavala (GR), Santander (ES), Nicosia (CY), Ponta Delgada (PT), Dubrovnik – Neretva county (HR) and Tenerife (ES).

These strategies facilitated the reintroduction of waste as a resource into the urban metabolism flows and addressed waste management, risk prevention and land-use as an integral part of urban development. They were collectively-built through a participatory process based on the quadruple helix, where policy makers, researchers, industry and civil society stakeholders worked on designing, implementing and evaluating integrated waste prevention and management measures.

BIOAZUL contributed to the development of the eco-innovative waste prevention and management measures to be adopted in the 11 cities, and supported some of them (Lisbon and Ponta Delgada) in the monitoring and follow-up of the data during the implementation phase. We also participated in the general evaluation of the measures and strategies implemented and the environmental, social and economic impact assessment of each of them, including the replication potential in other tourist cities in Europe. Another key activity carried out was the identification and analysis of regulatory frameworks in the cities of Santander, Tenerife, Lisbon and Ponta Delgada in relation to different areas of waste management (e.g. biowaste, sorting and recycling, reuse and prevention, environmental certification, etc.) with the goal of supporting policy makers in the selection of the measures and strategies proposed by URBAN-WASTE. BIOAZUL also identified and carried out a review of specific methodologies (e.g. Urban and Industrial Symbiosis, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Balanced Scorecard Approach, etc.) to be adopted within the project and contribute to the assessment of the results obtained.