STOPWASTE stakeholder meetings in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has the ambition to be 50% circular by 2030, and fully circular by 2050. The City of Almere has translated this ambition into various circular pilots and has indicated that it wants to be the first circular city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands. As part of the Interreg Europe StopWaste project, the Municipality of Almere paves the way for the improvement of its policy on waste prevention. In order to do is, the City of Almere with its stakeholders develops the concept of a Circular Craft Center (CA) at the local level. It is a new way of working and thinking in which bulky waste streams that normally end up at the recycling center or just be thrown ‘along the road’ in a low-value condition are being put back on the market in a high-value condition. This is done in collaboration with various local parties from Almere to ensure that collection, sorting and processing into new products take place in a way that makes the high quality of products possible and that, at the end, contributes to the waste prevention.
On the 23rd of August and 27th of September two local stakeholders meetings were held in Almere. During the first meeting the project STOPWASTE was introduced by the municipal project team to the participants who were representatives of the largest thrift companies Rataplan and De Kringloper and craft companies De Houtmijn and Circuloco. The stakeholders confirmed the common ambitions on the waste prevention in Almere and their interest in the STOPWASTE project.
During the second meeting in September 2023, the participants were discussing further development of the concept of CA and namely the development of a local reuse portal. This should give a boost to prevention and reuse of products within Almere. During the meeting there was a discussion on the development of the concept, shaping the tasks and responsibilities, making plans for the business case.
The idea is that the municipality and the recycling companies will jointly staff the reuse portal, keep products separate and arrange logistics.
These learnings will be taken up in the process of reviewing of the Sustainability Agenda, the main policy instrument of the City of Almere on waste management.