Ikea, Coop and Leroy Merlin: Neapolitans meet "Sballati e Compost-i!"

by Annalisa Tancredi

It was a week full of meetings and best practices that promoted by Anea on the occasion of the European Week for Waste Reduction. Within the project "Sballati e Compost-i!" (no-packed and composting) and in collaboration with major brands of supermarket chains such as Ikea, Leroy Merlin and UniCoop Tirreno, free seminars and information points were promoted to raise citizens on choosing products with reduced or reusable packaging.

Launched on November 2011 by Anea (Neapolitan Energy Agency) and the City of Naples, "Sballati e Compost-i!" project aims to reduce the amount of waste (about 35% of the total) and the organic fraction (40% of the total) in the waste, and promote the use of products such as detergents and food on tap (cereals, pasta, rice and vegetables bulk, etc.). composters, cloth diapers, bedding ecological. “Sballati e Compost-i! is a project we are developing in collaboration with partners such as Confcommercio, Confesercenti, Federconsumatori, Legambiente and WWF - said Michele Macaluso, Anea director - The objective is to facilitate citizens in finding and identifying no-packaging products. The campaign, in fact, is having great success with 160 stores joined and 90 unpacked products distributed ".

Thanks their know-how and in collaboration with GDO brands, in occasion of SERR were organized several events involving many Neapolitan citizens.

- for 4 days the Neapolitans companies joining the project, took part of "Infopoint Ecospesa" at COOP in via Arenaccia, providing all information requested by the hundreds of visitors about the characteristics of sustainability of no packed products;
- during 3 free seminars on "How to Make Home Composting" at the IKEA and Leroy Merlin, trainers have explained all the steps necessary to practice composting in private homes and in condominiums to reduce the organic waste fraction.

Finally, during the press conference on Thursday, 15th November, the Anea and the City of Naples, announced the launch of a subsidy for the purchase of compost, to benefit Neapolitans citizenship and condominiums have a garden. The aim is to entrench even more the culture of integrated waste cycle and encourage the adoption of measures that benefit not only to the individual but all the community.

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Lesson number one: reduction!

by Valentina Tibaldi

The bell is ringing, it’s time for waste reduction. In the Comprehensive School G.B. Monteggia in Laveno Mombello, the reflection on waste reduction includes concrete actions aiming to educate young people to have a more reasoned relationship with… their garbage!

Along with the EWWR (European Week for Waste Reduction) style, the underlying belief is that preventing an overproduction of waste is easier than we think: we just need common sense and the right amount of creativity. 

Which snack generates less waste? The school managed to create a well-structured educational project starting from daily experience and ordinary questions like this. First of all, the project is based on a competition, where students have to use their skills to find the best way of approaching the issue of waste reduction. In order to win an award made of papier-mâché and other recycled materials, they are going to become: skilled communicators thinking up effective claims and coordinate graphic for the message they want to deliver; wise strategists drawing up a list of useful actions to reduce waste production; practiced craftsman designing different containers in order to make a proper separate collection of rubbish; estrous artists finding innovative usages to potential garbage.

But this is not the end. In fact, if reducing our own waste is easy, finding new ways of reducing it can be even funny: from November, 19th to 23rd, severe guardians of trashcans will be controlling their classmates’ behaviors, while artistic and informative exhibitions about environment sustainability will be filling the halls of the school.
In these terms, the event crosses scholastic borders, aiming to become a permanent project, extended to pupils’ families. With a unique purpose: transmitting to adults that same consciousness young people learn and experience at school.

Manuela Trevisan, teacher and promoter of the project together with Alessandra Annoni and Paola Zarini, claims that: “this project makes students feel real protagonists and part of a bigger system. United we stand: if all of us take even a small step in the right direction, then we can do many great things”.

In this way, European Week for Waste Reduction becomes what it has always meant to be: a Month, a Year, a Lifestyle.

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The Barter Week for a sustainable holiday

by Sofia Lorenzini

In the last years the barter is back to being used always more by all people who want to save money and at the same time to have a more human trade. For this reason the website www.bed-and-breakfast.it has promoted the initiative Barter Week, to be held from 19 to 25 November 2012, for the fourth time.

The Barter Week is also affiliated to the European Week for Waste Reduction 2012, they both aim to improve the quality of our lives with more sustainable habits and trades. The B&B can promote and spread initiatives related to their management, while participants of the European Week for Waste Reduction can become travellers aware of the Italian B&B resources linked to the territory and the quality of life.

The increasing number of Italian Bed and Breakfast, over 2000 currently, affiliated with www.bed-and-breakfast.it will be ready to make you stay in their facilities in exchange for goods or services. Throughout all the Barter Week there will be no money payments, in order to push both the guest and the operator to focus on the human aspect of hospitality and the opportunity to exchange experiences and expertise. With the help of the crisis, barter is making us rediscover the value added to the simple holiday of a cultural exchange experience. The initiative also encourages the imagination of travellers with offers to the B&B, most of all the creation of photo, videos and websites.

Travellers have three ways to search for a sustainable holiday: they can go to the official website www.settimanadelbaratto.it, choose the place to visit and contact the manager; they can look at the "Lista dei Desideri dei Gestori“ (Wish List Managers) and find an offer that suits them; or they can propose their own barter to all regional or Italian B&B. In the section “Proposte dei Viaggiatori” (Proposals Travelers)  you can enter your offer of barter.
If you're a B&B and you want to partecipate you have to add to the list on the website www.bed-and-breakfast.it.

There is also a Facebook page www.facebook.com/settimanadelbaratto which currently has more than 73,000 fans, growing at a rate of 500 per day, constantly busy with offers and requests for exchange.

From the words of the promoters: "With the Barter Week you can spend a weekend out of town and discover Italy off-season creating new friendly relations based on respect and trust. You can make up a different holiday and have plenty of human contact, exchanges of experience and professionalism going back to the origins of hospitality and gratitude. Save on the cost of a holiday embracing the philosophy of "not what you have but what you are and you can do."

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EWWR 2012 break all records!

by Francesca Morra


Ready for the European Week for Waste Reduction 2012? For 8 days will promote public awareness on the theme of waste reduction and try to realize the spirit of that reduction with practical actions. This 4th edition is characterized by breaking all records: the latest press releases issued in fact speak of more than 10,000 shares validated across Europe with the aim to inform and above all to convince people to produce less waste through the adoption of simple everyday actions.

Once again the "Week" has exceeded all expectations: 35 organizers, 23 countries and involved 10,793 shares officially validated. 5,261 are Italian! This number was announced during the official presentation at Ecomondo on November 9. This shows how the SERR works also in Italy, where it is organized with the support of CONAI (such as Main Sponsor) and CIC (Italian Composting Association).

To involve even more all Project Developer this year the Italian Organizing Committee (composed by Ministero dell’Ambiente, Federambiente, AICA, Provincia di Torino, Rifiuti 21 Network, Provincia di Roma, Legambiente, e i partner tecnici ERICA soc. coop. ed Eco dalle Città) has proposed three actions to be organized today, November 17. These have been enthusiastically received by many Project Developer who then organized nine reconstructions of the logo of SERR (organized by associazione HART, Circolo territoriale jonico Rifiuti Zero, associazione Qedora, Oratorio Santa Maria Maggiore, Comitato San Michele di Pagana, Comitato Civico Ripuliamo Civico e Terrasini, Comune di Arzachena, Augustea Holding spa, Comune di Rivalta); 5 NoTrash Mob (organized by: Comitato San Michele di Pagana, Ecogaia, Associazione R-esistere & Co, Rifiuti Zero Lentini, Comune di Capaci) e un Freeze (organized Comitato Civico Ripuliamo Civico e Terrasini).

Despite the underlying belief that the important thing is to take part, we remember that the most important actions will be proclaimed during the Awards Ceremony to be held in Rome on December 12 with the support of Sartori Ambiente, Edizioni Ambiente, Ecostore and General Beverage. Also this year, with the collaboration of Evvivanoè art exhibitions Cherasco (Cuneo), the winners will received a work created specifically for the awards.

Unfortunately they can’t reward everyone, but the SERR became social: secretariat propose to all the Project Developer to tweet their actions by using the hashtag # SERR12. The best tweets will be collected and disseminated. Follow the official page and on Facebook, and also on the websites of Media Partner: Econews, Rifiutilab, Gsa Igiene Urbana, GreenReport, and Alternativa Sostenibile and Free Service (Ambiente & Regioni).

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EWWR: let’s get it started!

by Francesca Morra



The National Organizing Committee (Ministry of Environment, Federambiente, Rifiuti 21 Network, Province of Turin, Province of Rome, Legambiente, AICA, ERICA Soc. coop., Eco dalle Città), after its meeting in Rome last July 19 at the Ministry of the Environment, officially opened the registrations to the fourth edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction to be held 17 to 25 November 2012.

The EWWR is an environmental communication campaign focused on reducing waste, originated within the LIFE+ project with the primary target of raising awareness among the institutions, stakeholders and consumers about all the strategies and policies for the waste prevention in the European Union, that Member States must pursue, even in light of recent regulatory measures (such as the waste Framework Directive, 2008/98/EC).

Event that has become indispensable for the supporters of a life with less waste, the past three editions have seen an increasing participation: 430 actions registered in 2009, 585 in 2010 and 960 last year! The significance of these numbers is mainly due to the fact that you have to be an institution or Public Administration, an association or a nonprofit organization, a school or a university or a company, etc. to became a project developer. So it is important to emphasize that the "week" works mainly because it is an opportunity to get together and develop action as a group. 

“This year’s innovation is the Italian Award. – Said Roberto Cavallo, President of AICA, which for the fourth year will be the Organizing Secretary- This will contribute to reward the most virtuous actions of each category that will display the reach of the week targets in terms of visibility and communications; originality; content quality and focus on waste prevention; action’s reproducibility and long term follow up”. In addicition, this year, we decided to advance the applications open up compared to the previous editions. 

In order to take part in the “week”and becoming a “project developer”, you have to subject the application form to the National Committee filling the form (Adhesion form), clicking on this link, in addition to the Committee’s other members websites and send it to serr@assaica.org. If the application will meet the European assignements, they will be convalidated by the Committee and will be named “Action for the European Week for Waste Reduction” and will receive the campaign’s kit and obviously the possibility to use the european logo. Also individuals can participate to the week by writing their personal commitments on the website board www.menorifiuti.org: everyone can write down their own waste reduction experience”.

Many other innovations are scheduled for this year edition, so follow the official website www.menorifiuti.org and the Facebook page. Be a part of the week!

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