URBANREC

New approaches for recovery of urban bulky waste to create high added-value recycled products

The Final Event of URBANREC project was welcomed at Alquenencia Parc in Alzira, on Wednesday, January 29th. Valencia Provincial Council and different partners have participated. In addition, a practical workshop on recycling was organised, in which the students of Lluís Vives school participated in.

Valencia Provincial Council and Consorcio Valencia Interior have organized the second "Training Event" in order to transfer the progress of the project locally, through working tables with the environment departments of the Valencia province municipalities.

Valencia Provincial Council and Consorcio Valencia Interior have organized the "Training Event" conference with the objective of exchanging experiences in the management of bulky waste and establishing the basis for the development of the URBANREC management model.

Villanueva de Castellón (Spain)

EKOPIKNIK is the flagship event organized for the second time by City Hall of Warsaw (Waste Management Department). The aims of the event are: ecological education, promotion of zero waste lifestyle, waste prevention and ideas of foodsharing. Over 40 workshops and on-stands presentations regarding to re-use, re-store and/or renovating processes were held during the event.
At the EKOPIKNIK the city educational game on the bulky waste management (partly dedicated to the URBANREC project goals) was organized. The official URBANREC film and the roll-ups promoting URBANREC were presented. The URBANREC survey had been conducted by IOS-PIB representatives among the participants.

Capital City of Warsaw was the host of an official diplomatic meeting with the delegation from Birma (Rangun). One of the points of the meeting was dedicated to Warsaw municipal waste management system – the current situation was presented and URBANREC project had been explained and the participants were encouraged to visit the website of the project. The presentation generated a great interest and the outcome of the project will be monitored by the Burmese authorities.

One-day conference focusing on new tends on bonding activities. URBANREC project as well as the first results regarding future bonding technologies were presented, like development of mattress adhesives based on recycled urban waste.

Networking event during coffee break and lunch break of Technical conference on bonding. During this event, URBANREC consortium offered all the attendees the opportunity to meet the partners and to further exchange ideas on URBANREC project’s stands.

Bornova Municipality organized environmental training sessions for students studying in Bornova. In these training sessions, 10 schools have been visited and 450 students have been trained about recycling and waste issues.

Presentation with the title: Recycling foam from post-consumer waste: challenges and opportunities for sustainable development

EurAsia Waste Management Symposium was held 2-4 May 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. We have participated with a 4-page extended abstract and an oral presentation entitled Towards Substitution of Urban Bulky Waste for Wood-Plastic Composite Products. We described URBANREC project and some results of the wood-plastic composite experiments.

The EXPOPOWER Fair is one of the most important events in Poland for the energy technology and power industry. This mix of trade fairs collects in one place small and bigger manufacturers and distributors of RES, heating, cooling, solutions, experts in energy management and energy efficiency improvement. The URBANREC Project has been promoted through Leaflet.

An electronic poster was showed to all attendees of the event, to introduce the overall URBANREC objectives and expected results.

Workshop concerning the recycling of textiles via plastic processing techniques. The URBANREC project and first results concerning the fibre reinforced composites of WP3 were presented.

The URBANREC project was promoted by giving the presentation with general information of the project.

Wear Bank Project of Bornova is a donation activity which gives away second-hand clothes, wares, books and toys etc. coming from the ware-boxes located in different places in Bornova.
As it is anticipated activity which goes in line with URBANREC Project, Bornova organized donation days to increase re-use capacity. Donation days were realized at the green market areas in Bornova with the support of volunteer university students who are members of Bornova Youth Centre. Specific attention is paid to suburbs with low socio-economic profiles of Bornova. During the donation and distribution activity, at least 7 thousands of pieces are given to citizens in need.

News about Wear Bank and donation days were published in some local and national newspapers, Bornova Municipality official website and social media channels too.

To introduce to the experts´ group the main projects on Circular Economy on which AIMPLAS is working on (the URBANREC project, among them), to help to establish the next stages at policy/directives level.

Bornova Municipality published a poster having 8 main activities conducting in line with URBANREC Project. These activities are simply promoting re-use, recycle, CAS and MCAS of Bornova. So, the poster presents the activities for citizens to support recycling and use re-use Ware Bank Project. In addition, these posters are distributed to municipal buildings, public centers, mukhtars and will be displayed at the schools located in Bornova. 

The aim of the event has been to present representatives of Polish industry, public and local government administration and all interested parties to the concept and offer of the European Innovation Council for 2018-2020. The presentation of the EIC offer was complemented by the presentation of the offer of national instruments enabling the use of synergy mechanisms, e.g. the Seal of Excellence mechanism and solutions adopted in selected operational programs. The event has been useful also as a detailed discussion of individual instruments, presentation of best practices - projects that have been successful and experience of evaluators. The participants were learn the rules of applying, as well as receive practical tips related to applying for funding from the framework programs. They have had also the opportunity to exchange good practices and experience. The URBANREC Project has been promoted through Leaflet.

This website aims:
Promoting carried out project activities,
Providing information about partners,
Disseminating project documents to wider public.
It also displays 8 main services in line with the URBANREC project. The website also includes news published about activities of Bornova as URBANREC Project partner in Turkish Media. It is also possible to subscribe to follow URBANREC project activities and news. 

Capital City of Warsaw is one of the members of COLLECTORS Regional Working Group, composed of 10 experts from various European local and regional authorities: Southern Region Waste Management Office (Ireland), City of Oslo (Norway), City of Antwerp (Belgium), AMIU (Genoa, Italy), City of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Agència de Residus de Catalunya (Spain), Lipor (Porto, Portugal), Contarina SpA (Province of Treviso, Italy) and HSY (Helsinki, Finland). The consortium meeting focused on the first step of the project, namely the selection of key parameters which will be used as a basis for the inventory of waste collection systems in Europe. On the third day of the meeting, a public conference was organised, focusing on how to adapt best practices for waste collection to local constraints. In particular, the Regional Working Group members shared their challenges and good practices during two round tables. Warsaw has presented their challenges and URBANREC project was explained and the participants were encouraged to visit the website of the project.

Although not directly related to nanotechnology, the URBANREC project, and especially the new URBANREC industrial products, were showed to the attendees with the aim of looking for potential synergies among the wide profile of attendees, or possible improvements that the nanotechnology sector could bring to the project (e.g in terms of PU binder additivation with nanoparticles to obtain improve properties).

The partners had the opportunity to share with external industrial contacts as well as other type of organizations (public bodies, universities) the results obtained so far in URBANREC, and showed their prototypes and technologies.

To introduce to all attendees related with the circular economy philosophy the URBANREC Project, as well as AIMPLAS as a Technological Centre and partner involved in the project.

In the context of the URBANREC 21st MM in Belgium, VANHEEDE organised a company visit to illustrate their roll in the URBANREC research project.

To show the industry the objectives and first results of the URBANREC project, with the aim of contributing to its replicability and involvement of any other region.

A promotional stand during an International Forum of Waste Management - SOSEXPO 2018.
SOSEXPO consisted of an exhibition and a conference. The conference program included, among others, new requirements and standards of the European Union regulations concerning waste management, in particular circular economy. Various representatives of companies presented themselves on stands: solutions, technologies, machinery, equipment and investments plans which are applicable in waste management and environmental protection. Warsaw City Hall was a main local government representative.

In October 2017, URBANREC participated to organise a joint workshop with six other H2020 eco-innovation projects. The event took place during the European Week of Cities and Regions and focused on local/ regional policies and strategies and the contribution of the different eco-innovations proposed by the seven projects.

El diputado de Medio Ambiente, Josep Bort, clausuró en el colegio Virgen del Rosario de Massamagrell la campaña de comunicación y sensibilización para favorecer el reciclaje y valorización de los residuos voluminosos en el marco del proyecto Urbanrec, una iniciativa europea a la que está asociada la Diputación de Valencia.

The National Contact Point of Poland (KPK PB UE) for Research Programs of the European Union together with the Warsaw University of Life Sciences has organized the Info-Day devoted to the Social Challenge 2 in Horizon 2020, and the URBANREC project has been presented on the presentation given by the IZNAB team. It was generic information about the objectives and scope of the URBANREC Project, as well as general information about the achievement up to date.

Conama Local is the meeting place of a network of professionals working from local entities to strengthen policies in the area of sustainable development and which come into connection thanks to the work of the Conama Foundation. The meeting allows to anticipate key issues, objectives and deadlines and serves to share and disseminate knowledge and facilitate the exchange of successful experiences at the local level.

The symposium is aimed to find a coalition point for international speakers to share their experiences working and researching on environmental technologies in the fields of Solid Waste and Waste Water Process Engineering along with Air Quality Control.

The congress acted as a platform for purchasers and policymakers to share knowledge and experiences.

The URBANREC project is an ambitious initiative which seeks to recover bulky waste throughout Europe. Over 60% of this type of waste currently ends up in landfills. URBANREC seeks to endow this waste with a second life and, thanks to the new technologies being developed, it is estimated that the project will enable a recovery rate of 82%, thereby contributing to environmental enhancement in urban areas.

Each year, all local authorities report the domestic and household waste materials collected by them. This gives Flanders good and up-to-date figures on selective collection, recycling and final processing of household waste materials. These figures constitute the quantitative test framework for the targets envisaged. In this way they give the weak and strong points of the Flemish waste policy and can be used to adjust the policy in the future.

DV designed an educational program carried out during 2017 in eight municipalities, with the main objective aware in the schools and citizens into the importance of the correct disposal of bulky waste and promote how project Urbanrec is transforming bulky waste into a resources.

Two keynote speakers addressed the role of plastics in a circular economy, from the policy and industrial perspectives. On the other hand, LIFE project teams explained how they are getting more plastic waste into the circular economy.

Business opportunities in the circular economy –Reducing, Reusing and Recycling: Conference & Brokerage Event

This one day event, entitled Feedback and opportunities for public procurement of innovation in the waste sector, was divided into two sessions. One to present the main findings of the PPI4Waste project and how PPI can be experimented and stimulated in the field of waste management while the other explored synergies between procurers and projects on innovative solutions.

The 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (#LiNo17), dedicated to the field of chemistry, took place from 25 – 30 June 2017. 28 Laureates as well as Joseph Sifakis, recipient of the ACM A.M. Turing Award 2007 and Ahmet Üzümcü, Director General, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, attended the Meeting.

Practical demonstration of the theory lessons explained at the school about waste recycling. The students showed great interest and a good previous knowledge on the subject.

Tech Textil is the leading international trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens showing the full range of potential uses of textile technologies.

JEC World 2017 – Paris 

Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRS): 29-30 March 2017 in Amsterdam

In 2016, the OVAM celebrated its 35th birthday party. For 35 years our employees have been dreaming of a sustainable future for Flanders. A sustainable Flanders, which means, for us, an efficient waste, materials and soil management. Together with the Flemish citizen, the business community and the local authorities, we have made Flanders a leading region in this respect.

Visit of Delegations of European Innovation Agencies 

BORNOVA Belediyesi, dahil olduğu URBANREC Projesi kapsamında büyük hacimli evsel atıkları ekonomik değeri olan geri dönüşüm ürünlerine dönüştürecek.

Presentation of the project to KOMOSIE, the umbrella Federation of Environmental Entrepreneurs in the Social Economy, during a regular meeting between OVAM and KOMOSIE

International Waste Management Forum

InfoDay for Energy and Environment in Horizon 2020 Programme

International Workshop LIFE-MED (Medical Equipment Devices) circular economy. 

European Week of Regions and Cities in Valencia. Workshop addressed to mayors, councilors and project technicians.  

K Fair Düsseldorf, Germany

K 2016, presentation on screen at the booth

"INTERNATIONAL BROKERAGE EVENT ‘CITIES OF THE FUTURE 2016’ INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL, ISTANBUL, TURKEY"

"NOVES ESTRATÈGIES EN LA GESTIÓ MUNICIPAL DE RESIDUS, INICIATIVES PER A GENERAR VALOR ECONÒMIC, SOCIAL I AMBIENTAL"

New strategies in municipal waste management, initiatives to generate economic, social and environmental value. 

International Brokerage Event-Turkey in Horizon2020 CITIES OF THE FUTURE- 

11th Sdewes Conference Lisbon 2016 

Meeting with governmental agencies (stakeholders) 

Publication in The European Textile Technology Platform  website  general information  of project Urbanrec, with a link towards the  Centexbel official  website- section Urbanrec.

Exhibition  and visit with local authorities to Ecofrag treatment plant.