Cities across Europe are working to “close the loop” in order to become circular cities. This implicates every facet of urban life, notably including organic material and bio-waste, as well as construction and demolition waste (CDW). These two fields hold huge potential for achieving true circularity, while creating jobs and improving wellbeing.
A new website has launched to highlight the tools and processes seven small- to medium-sized cities across Europe are developing to tackle bio-waste and CDW, including deep dives into how they are implementing these tools and processes, and why the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan has identified CDW and bio-waste as key waste streams for the transition to a circular economy.
This work is being done as part of the CityLoops project, through which the cities of Apeldoorn (the Netherlands), Bødo (Norway), Mikkeli (Finland), Porto (Portugal), Seville (Spain), Høje-Taastrup and Roskilde (Denmark) have joined forces to pilot a series of solutions to close the loop in these two important waste streams.
In addition to acting as a repository for their innovations, the website also explains how the project defines a circular city, what indicators it uses to assess city circularity, and how the project will implement circular procurement to reach its goals.
During the course of the project, circular procurement experts from Rijkswaterstaat and ICLEI Europe will help the seven cities to identify how and which procurement activities could be used to strategically support their innovative pilots. Furthermore, a series of activities will be undertaken to promote and support circular procurement implementation at the city level.
The CityLoops website will be regularly updated to cover project- and topic-related events and activities, as well as other news related to circularity in the CDW and bio-waste sectors.
What’s more, cities interested in the project are invited to get involved as “replication zones“. Replicators get to benefit from direct exchange with the cities involved in the project, as well as site visits and peer-to-peer workshops.
Source: ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, 11 November 2020