UrBAN-WASTE KICKING-OFF , “WASTE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISTIC CITIES”

Europe’s cities are some of the greatest tourism destinations. The socio-economic impact of tourism is extraordinary, but it brings at the same time high levels of unsustainable resource consumption and waste production.

In comparison with other cities, tourist cities have to face additional challenges related to waste management and prevention due to their geographical and climatic conditions, the seasonality of tourism flow and the specificity of tourism industry and of tourists as waste producers.

UrBAN-WASTE project, aiming to set up urban strategies for waste management in touristic cities, is developed in this context. The project will support policy makers in answering these challenges and developing strategies to reduce the municipal waste production and further support the re-use, recycling, collection and disposal of waste in tourist cities. UrBAN-WASTE will adopt and apply the urban metabolism approach to support the switch to a circular model where waste is considered as resource and reintegrated in the urban flow.

The UrBAN-WASTE project will perform a metabolic analysis of the state of art of urban metabolism in 11 pilot cities (Tenerife (Adeje, Arona, Puerto de la Cruz) (Spain), Tracia (Greece), Florence (Italy), Siracusa (Italy), Copenhague (Denmark), Nicosia (Cyprus), Nice (France), Lisbon (Portugal), Azores (Portugal), Santander (Spain) and Dubrovnik (Croatia)), which represent a total population of more than 3 million residents and that receive every year around 25 millions of tourists.

In parallel, a participatory process involving all the relevant stakeholders will be set up through a mobilisation and mutual learning action plan. These inputs will be integrated in the strategies along with a review of the most innovative existing technologies and practices in the field of waste management and prevention. The strategies will then be implemented in the 11 pilot cities and the results will be monitored and disseminated, facilitating this way the transfer and the adaptation of the project outcomes in other cities.

The project, financed by the European Commission under its Horizon 2020 programme, with a total budget of 4,248,782.50 €, with a duration of 36 months and coordinated by the Regional Ministry of Territorial Policy, Sustainability and Security of Canary Islands Government, started last June 1^st, 2016. 28 partners take part in this project (different types of public and private institutions), being BIOAZUL one of them, and they cover the following countries and European regions: Denmark and Sweden as North Europe representatives, Croatia as Oriental Europe, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and France as Occidental Europe, and Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece as Southern Europe. This high diversity will provide a huge dissemination potential of the results, multiplying their impact, as well as the exchange of different realities and experiences.

The Kick-off meeting, in which representatives from the 28 consortium members participated, took place on June, 6^th – 7^th 2016 in Tenerife, concretely in the municipalities of Adeje, Arona and Puerto de la Cruz. This meeting was also attended by different local and regional authorities, starting from the Environment and Security Vicecounsellor of the Canary Islands Government, Ms. Blanca Pérez, as well as the Mayor of Adeje, Mr. José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, the Third Vicepresident and Environment Counsellor of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Mr. José Antonio albuena, the Mayor of Arona, Mr. José Julián Mena, and the Mayor of Puerto de la Cruz, Mr. Lope Domingo Afonso. The European Commission Project Officer in charge of evaluating the implementation and the results of URBAN-WASTE project, Mr. Bela Atzel, also attended the meeting.