Project: Urban Waste

The URBAN-WASTE project under the frame of HORIZON2020 develops eco-innovative and gender-sensitive waste prevention and management strategies in cities with high levels of tourism in order to reduce the urban waste production and improve municipal waste management. These strategies will facilitate the reintroduction of waste as a resource into the urban metabolism flows and address waste management, risk prevention and land-use as an integral part of urban development. Europe’s cities are some of the world’s greatest tourism destinations. The socio-economic impact of these visitors is extraordinary and urban tourism, with the economic and employment opportunities it creates, has become a key factor in overall urban planning. Tourism has great economic benefits for cities across Europe; however, tourism brings also a range of negative externalities, including high levels of unsustainable resource consumption and waste production. URBAN-WASTE aims at preserving the ecosystems services from the degradation due to irresponsible waste management.

Metabolic analysis of eleven paradigmatic tourist urban and peri-urban areas will be carried out: coastal cities - Nice (FR), Lisbon (PT), Syracuse (IT), Copenhagen (DK), Kavala (GR), Santander (ES)- ,  insular cities – Nicosia (CY) and Ponta Delgada (PT) – peri-urban areas -  Dubrovnik county (HR), Tenerife (ES) -, and heritage towns in the mainland – Florence (IT).