NEWS SEARCH RESULTS ( 37 - 40 from 59 )

In a crucial year for the PlastiCircle project, we caught up with Julián Torralba, R&D manager with Las Naves. Julián tells us how Las Naves is bringing PlastiCircle to citizens, how marketing will make the difference, and why the San Marcelino neighbourhood is the perfect test bed for PlastiCircle innovations.

Julián, why is the period of April-May 2019 so important in the PlastiCircle calendar? What is happening right now?

In April, residents of Valencia’s San Marcelino neighbourhood– adults and children alike – will have their first contact with the PlastiCircle project.

As we know, PlastiCircle will be rolling out innovations in plastic waste collection and transport in the neighbourhood. What this means for citizens is that they will be sorting their waste and depositing plastic packaging into “smart containers”. Good sorting and recycling habits will be identified with unique user IDs, and incentivised with points – points which residents can use for all sorts of benefits in the city. So before and during the pilot we are staging a wide variety of local activities and events designed to encourage citizen engagement and to let people know what this is about!

These street-level activities all consist of strategically-placed ‘monitors’ who will explain the PlastiCircle pilot to residents, how to take part, and also to inform residents on other issues related to the environment, the circular economy and recycling.

In parallel, a communications campaign will kick off through various channels and media so the residents of San Marcelino can become familiar with the changes that the pilot will bring about in their neighbourhood.

And in May we’ll be officially unveiling the pilot – both to residents and to the media – under the ‘Reciplàstic’ brand. Everyone is invited, including project partners and everyone who is involved in the organisation of the project.

Tell us about Las Naves... what is Las Naves' role in Valencia, and specifically in the PlastiCircle project?

Las Naves is the innovation centre for the city of Valencia. We therefore manage and develop projects and innovative solutions that improve the quality of life of the residents of the city.

Our projects revolve around five main areas: energy, mobility, agro-food, culture and health. The theme of sustainability runs through all these areas, with a special focus on citizen engagement. So at Las Naves we have a lot of experience with social innovation tools such as citizen engagement and communications.

That’s why at Las Naves, aside from organising local activities that support the PlastiCircle pilot in the city of Valencia, we have played an important role in the design of the  citizen communication and citizen engagement strategies for Utrecht and Alba Iulia (PlastiCircle’s other pilot cities). These strategies include important elements such as marketing plans and resident participation plans. As such, the three PlastiCircle pilot cities have a tool that will help them define common objectives and innovative activities for each respective pilot.

About the San Marcelino pilot area… why is this neighbourhood such an ideal place for the PlastiCircle pilot?

The neighbourhood of San Marcelino has various characteristics that make it highly suitable for hosting a pilot initiative such as this. Among other factors, San Marcelino has a population of approximately 9,900 people in a space of 33 hectares – making the neighbourhood the third most populated district in Valencia, and with the third highest population density. So from our perspective it is a very strategic district – with a sizeable population in a limited space -, something which helps us considerably when planning both communications-related and technical activities.

Equally, San Marcelino has a well established residents’ association – more than 30 years in action and with a great capacity to mobilise and get residents involved.

Finally, this is a neighbourhood with a sizeable population of young people and adults: 64.6% of inhabitants are between the ages of 16 and 64, with a further 23% aged more than 65 years old. Both these demographics really fit the bill when we take into account the PlastiCircle pilot and what it sets out to do.

What will you be doing to train citizens and professionals, and make citizens aware of the pilot initiative?

To make sure the pilot runs smoothly it is indeed crucial to keep citizens/residents informed. And the same goes for the various entities involved in the waste management sector in the neighbourhood.

First off, a marketing strategy was designed with the creation of a special local brand and logo – to make the pilot more relatable for, and closer to, the local residents. This ‘localised’ branding extends to all the corporate material being distributed and also to the various smart containers at the collection points.

Next, with our local partners, we planned an ambitious series of events in strategic locations: local schools, neighbourhood associations, municipal swimming pools, health centres, public squares and so on. In all these places we can engage with people directly to explain the pilot and encourage participation.

Advertising also has an important role in these types of processes. By advertising through local media with significant local reach, we can publicise the PlastiCircle pilot. Radio, newspapers, local TV or even municipal bus lines all have advertising space and all engage with local residents.

Each person that is informed about the project through these channels can sign up quickly and easily through a dedicated website, and get to know the plastic recycling points and rewards system in place. All of which is designed to encourage recycling for the benefit of the PlastiCircle pilot and the neighbourhood as a whole.

The pilot is undertaken in Valencia, but what happens then? What are the next steps?

When the pilot in San Marcelino is over, we’ll pass the baton to the cities of Utrecht and Alba Iulia so they can deliver their respective pilots. They will surely benefit from the experience of Valencia and the information we have gathered.

At a local level, if the pilot turns out to be a success, we would ideally share the results with the municipality, or city of Valencia, so it can replicate the initiative in other neighbourhoods and districts. That way, every Valenciano could benefit from the innovations PlastiCircle is piloting.

European Union efforts to tackle marine litter were boosted with the adoption of new rules on single-use plastics by the European Parliament.

On 27 March 2019, legislators in Strasbourg voted on the Single-Use Plastics Directive, agreeing on measures to ban selected single-use products made of plastic, measures to reduce consumption of plastic food containers and beverage cups, and on extended producer responsibility schemes – schemes which will cover the cost of cleaning up litter (from products such as tobacco filters and fishing gear).

The new rules are intended to address marine litter and plastic pollution, but also go some way to cementing the EU’s position as a world leader in sustainable plastic policy.

Jyrki Katainen, European Commission vice-president for jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness said the new rules would not only prevent plastic pollution but provide opportunities for industry:

“The European Parliament has played an essential role (…) in giving a chance to the industry to innovate, thus driving forward our circular economy.”

This view was echoed by the legislation’s parliamentary rapporteur, Frédérique Ries of the ALDE group:

“The European Union is creating niches for innovation. We are creating opportunities for jobs. This (legislation) is an opportunity for innovation, creation, research and development – and for niches that will exist in all these alternatives (to single-use plastics).”

The directive voted on by the European Parliament also contains other measures related to the collection of plastic bottles.

The EU now has a 90% separate collection target for plastic bottles by 2029 (77% by 2025), and the introduction of design requirements to connect caps to bottles. Parliament also approved a target to incorporate 25% of recycled plastic in PET bottles from 2025 (and 30% from 2030).

Following this approval by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers will finalise the formal adoption. Typically, this then means that the endorsement is followed by publication of the texts in the Official Journal of the European Union, and European members states will then have two years to transpose the legislation into their national laws.

The rules on single-use plastics are part of the EU Plastics Strategy, which aims to have all plastic packaging placed on the EU market as reusable or recyclable by 2030.

PlastiCircle will mark the start of its first pilot initiative in Valencia with a general assembly meeting on 27-29 May 2019

The PlastiCircle consortium will meet again in late May 2019, shortly after the start of the project’s first pilot in Valencia’s San Marcelino district.

As with other general assembly meetings, the project team - in addition to the innovation committee and advisory board – will meet over two days of intense discussions and preparations for the next steps of the project.

But this time, the general assembly will also see firsthand what PlastiCircle partners have started in San Marcelino – here project innovations such as smart containers, citizen sorting incentives and optimised waste transport are being deployed from early May.

The visit to the San Marcelino pilot district will take place on 27 May, with official consortium meetings taking place on 28 and 29 May.

PlastiCircle will release regular updates on the website and via Twitter @circ_economy. 

The PlastiCircle project has been featured in a new publication by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, cementing the project’s position as a valuable learning tool for policy makers in the circular economy sphere.

‘A circular economy for plastics: Insights from research and innovation to inform policy and funding decisions’ was published on 4 March by the European Commission following a busy 18 months for plastics in the legislative calendar.

Aside from the more headline-grabbing issues of the past year - issues such as the EU directive on Single-use Plastics – other major themes are emerging from Brussels that show how serious European policy makers have become about the role of plastics in a circular economy; themes such as innovation spanning the entire plastics value chain.

This publication, an extensive document edited by Michiel De Smet and Mats Linder, gives a comprehensive overview of the novel sources, design and business models for plastics in a circular economy, in addition to circular after-use pathways for plastics – pathway such as collection and sorting, mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and organic recycling and biodegradation.

The document identifies a number of challenges and knowledge gaps, notably finding that “so far, innovations have often focused on improving a single issue, rather than taking the entire plastics system into account.”

“While thousands of EU-funded projects have dealt with plastics,” says the report, “only a few, mostly recent projects specifically focus on systemic aspects.”

Here the report cites PlastiCircle and the CIRC-PACK project as examples of initiatives that aim to study circularity of plastic packaging and its after-use channels.

The report is available to download via the European Commission.