The partnership project ‘Regions 4 Recycling’ (R4R) will run over three years and will formulate a methodology for waste data observation, selective collection and recycling rates that will enable participating regions to share best practice to improve their recycling performance.
The development follows a European Commission report released earlier this month which highlighted vast differences in recycling rates between EU member states, ranging from less than 10% to more than 70%.
The initiative, which has a budget of 2.2m euros, is being led by the Ile-de-France Region Waste Management Observatory (ORDIF) with ACR+ managing overall project communication and the Public Waste Agency of Flanders, OVAM, overseeing the technical component.
Commenting on the new initiative, ACR+ secretary general Olivier De Clercq said: “This project is about creating solidarity between regions with very different context and performances.
“It is encouraging to see that the current best European performers only started to implement their waste management strategy 15 years ago and today it is possible to move even faster, based on the accumulated experience and the new instruments available.”
Countries involved include France, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Estonia and Ireland, where Limerick County Council is represented. So far, there is no UK involvement.