More than 12,000 waste reduction actions will take place across 28 countries this week as part of the annual European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR).
Financed by the European Commission’s LIFE+ programme (2013-2017), the sixth edition began on Saturday (22 November) and aims to raise awareness of the economical and environmental impacts of throwing things away.
Run under the patronage of European Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella, and European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis, EWWR aims to reduce the amount of waste European citizens create, as it has been found that the average person creates around 500 kilogrammes of waste a year.
Food waste focus
This year, the campaign will focus on resource efficiency and the circular economy. It calls on people to pledge to take action to promote waste reduction, host repair and reuse workshops, and undertake waste sorting and recycling activities, in particular in countries where sorting and recycling rates are still low.
To help achieve this, EWWR will be holding ‘prevention thematic days’ with a particular focus on food waste, which will ask those pledging to take action to address food waste prevention through cooking lessons, workshops on smart shopping and food storage, and awareness-raising campaigns in restaurants.
A range of downloadable tools have been developed by EWWR to help bolster the ‘stop food waste’ days, including:
- fact sheets on specific food waste prevention activities, such as composting, food donation, writing food waste diaries, and ideas for cooking with leftovers (available in seven languages);
- food waste calculators (one for restaurants and one for householders);
- tips for reducing food waste, such as understanding best-before/use-by dates and storing food properly; and
- promotional posters (available in seven languages).
Although most actions are implemented in only one area, some of them belong to wider initiatives. These initiatives are implemented either at national level, as for instance the ‘Food In The Trash, For Nature A Waste Stash’ campaign in Italy, or at European level, such as the ‘Reuse More, Throw Less’ campaign coordinated by the RREUSE network and implemented in reuse centres in Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, Romania, and Spain.
Earlier this year (10 May), the campaign called on volunteers from across Europe to take part in litter picks as part of the EWWR’s ‘Let's Clean Up Europe!’ (LCUE) day of action.
LCUE, which was coordinated within the EWWR by the International Association for Environmental Communication (IECA) with the support of former Environment Commissioner for Janez Potočnik, focused waste picking activities at nature sites or towns that had been polluted by ‘illegal dumping’, or at coasts, and river or lake sides that has been affected by ‘washed-up waste’.
Find out more about the European Week for Waste Reduction.
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