SERR 2011, the European awards

by Francesca Morra

Yesterday, Tuesday, the 19th of June, the award ceremony of the third edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction was held at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris. In recent weeks, a jury of experts evaluated the awareness on waste reduction that most stood out among the more than seven thousand actions throughout the old continent (and beyond). Prizes were awarded to five categories, one for each kind of project development facing the European project: public administrations, associations and NGOs, businesses, schools and other (hospitals, nursing houses etc.). The work of the jury must not have been easy, but came eventually to a mutual agreement. These are the winners: 

Administration/public authority category: The multi-use Styria Bottle - Specialised Division FA19D Waste and Material Flow Management, Styrian Chamber of Agriculture, Styrian winegrowing enterprises (Styria, Austria) - A campaign carried out across the Styrian region as a partnership between the public administration and the private sector, to increase the quantity of “Steiermarkflaschen” (Styrian wine bottles) that are refilled after their first use.  Association/NGO: Waste Reduction Awareness Project - Junior Chamber International Izmir (Turkey) - A broad campaign involving trainings in 19 schools in Izmir, a businessmen meeting on sustainable waste management, a coastal clean-up and a booth in a supermarket. 

Business/industry: Green Week - Queen’s University Elms Village (Belfast, UK) - Several activities implemented in a residential area housing around 1800 students, including in particular clothes, books and games swapping, a cook book and the handing over of ripped vegetables for free. 

Educational establishment: 49% Less Food Wasted in Bjurhovda School Restaurant - Bjurhovdaskolan/IDA unit (Sweden) - A project to reduce the amount of food waste in the school restaurant and showing the results by putting small balls in a transparent tube visible in the restaurant. 

Other: Better take care of the environment by reducing waste - Medica (France) - A project taking place in 162 nursing houses throughout France, which involved about 10000 dwellers and 7000 employees. Activities involved for instance cooperation with school kids to knit stoles from wool bits and give them away to the red-cross association, cooking workshops and composting trainings. 

The Jury’s favourite: As a Jury’s favourite award this year, the Jury has decided to deliver a special prize to highlight the high and constant quality of the actions nominated in Catalonia during the 3 editions of the European Week for Waste Reduction Awards Competition. This special prize has been handed out to the Organiser of the Week in Catalonia, the ARC (Catalan Waste Agency). 
The full list of candidate actions is on the official website of the European SERR. 

All winners were given a symbolic plaque and the European Waste Reduction Trophy created by F. de Ribaucourt. The climate in the awards ceremony was marked by a palpable atmosphere of celebration and satisfaction, manifested primarily by the members of the European Secretariat. The award ceremony was held inside the first "Rencontres de la prevention des européennes déchets" series of conferences and meetings on the reduction of waste and the SERR, which Envi return to speak in more detail in the next week. If you wait to see what the organizers decided on the future of the "Week" save the date: European Week for Waste Reduction 2012 will take place from the 17th to 25th November 2012!

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EWWR 2011: The Italian finalists

 

by Francesca Morra

After 4 months since the third edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction there is still an important assignment to do: to award the most deserving, sustainable, original ones! The awards of the EWWR 2011 European finalists will be held on the next 18th and 19th of June during a ceremony featuring all the organizers and the finalists of every category (public administrations, associations, NGOs, firms, schools and “others”).

 The choice of the Italian finalists, among the 960 actions carried out and recorded has been very difficult for the Italian steering committee, composed by the Ministry of Environment, Federambiente, Rifiuti 21 Network, Province of Turin, Province of Rome, Legambiente, AICA, E.R.I.C.A. and Eco dalle Città. 

In the end, with a vote mediated by the Italian organizing secretary of AICA, the following nominations will be proposed: 
• Representing the public administrations, COVAR 14 with “Cook with the scraps”:featuring the Hotel Management school “Bobbio” of Carignano, Eataly, Slowfood, The Food Stand and local restaurants, it has been created a recipe book “Cook with the scraps”, and have been organized cook with the scraps courses. • Representing the associations, Reloader with the project “A neighbourhood for the environment: the good practice comes from the schools”: the event aimed at spreading conscious behaviours to reduce WEEEs, wastes of electric and electronic equipment and to prevent their indiscriminate abandon, making the students of the Rome Spinaceto neighbourhood assume active responsibility. The first action targeted to inform and give scientific data about WEEE. The second group of actions was about promoting among the public right views and behaviours. The third one has been the action “Clean the public park”, aiming at free the park from wastes. The last one was about a session of collection of WEEE at the High school Majorana. 
• Representing the firms, Farms of Puglia, with “QR-code - SERRevOIL”: it consisted of a new system of olive oil labeling, The Qr code, already used in other fields, is an encrypted writing which contains lots of information in little space, in this way we can save more paper than using the common labels. 
• Representing the schools, Primary school Galileo Galilei of Ispra with “Box? Yes, thanks”: the events in the school have been a lot: the “Fruit-a-day”, that is a day along the week when children had a break eating fruits or vegetables; the daily use of the bring break box without any packaging; the use of flask or a reused bottle or a glass for the tap water, the use of the school’s composter to recycle the organic waste. Even the parents have been involved and the dealers close to the school for the purchase of sustainable breaks. 
• Representing the category “others”, S.E.N.A.P.E., with “Baumobag”; at the tailoring lab “RiciCuci” (where used clothes are recovered) have been made shopping bags using empty packs of cats and dogs food. The packs have been collected through an ads campaign nearby the dog and cat pounds managed by S.E.N.A.P.E., the schools and the animal shops. 

oon we will know if these interesting initiatives could take part to the European finals: in the meantime we congratulate them for reaching such an important goal we wish them “good luck”!

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Thanks to COVAR14, food waste play a leading role EWWR 2011

by Andrea Stecich

What about bread and pasta left-overs? These days it’s a quite weird question.

Many of us, for various motivations, prefer getting rid of them in the rubbish or, more sensitively, recycling them through the compost heap collection system. Anyway, thrown waste are still edible and rich of nutritious: in the EU, 89 millions of tons of food per year are thrown away, and 42% of them come from our kitchens, rather than from supermarkets. Starting from these facts, on the occasion of the European Week for Waste Reduction which will take place from November 19 to 27, COVAR14 (South Turin Province Consortium for Waste Collection) decided to spread an innovative and strong message in order to stimulate public’s reflection, even though the practices are actually not so revolutionary, because our grandparents already used to reuse food waste.

Following the tradition then, COVAR14, in collaboration with Istituto Alberghiero Bobbio di Carignano, Eataly, Slowfood, Banco Alimentare and the restaurateurs, produced a “left-overs recipe book”. This was an opportunity for restaurateurs to show their cooking skills. Istituto Bobbio has been involved in organizing the scheduled events (three cooking classes and a left-overs dinner open to citizenship) thank to its teachers professionalism; Eataly Slowfood and Banco Alimentare will be in charge of food supply and transportation, and they will form the technical panel during the final dinner. The dishes, cooked by Istituto Bobbio’s personnel, will be voted according to different categories (maximum reuse dish, zero consumption dish, the best dish etc.), For giving visibility to the initiative, posters and press advertisements (Corriere di Moncalieri, il Carmagnolese, Luna Nuova, il Mercoledì) have been produced, and municipalities have also been involved. The recipe book will be the starting basis for the EWWR events, and it will be handed out by the municipalities or during the events. Otherwise you can download the pdf version from the COVAR14 website.

This way we can bring home a fragment of the ancient “reusing art”, for spreading across friends and relatives, saving money and preserving the environment.

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