LIFE

LIFE ENVIRONMENT |
LIFE and the circular economy
with us. These include people who were previously
refugees and others who have had to deal
with challenges that limit their ability to find work,”
says project manager Michael Mockel. “LIFE gave
us the start we needed to prove that this type of
environmental social enterprise was viable. Its success
led to our RCYCL model being copied by other
towns in Belgium. Thus the LIFE project was a key
contributor to around 100 or more green jobs like
ours overall,” he explains.
Jobs and skills
Reuse and repair centres can also make a useful
contribution to the EU’s jobs and social agenda. The
PRISCA project’s two waste reuse centres created 16
jobs, some of which have become permanent. On the
social side, by allowing the re-entry of used goods
onto the market at lower prices than new items, the
project ensured that those with lower incomes had
access to them. REPURPOSE aims to create jobs for
local people within the reuse hubs it has established
in five housing estates in London. The project has
developed a training programme tailored to three
target audiences: housing and waste professionals;
social housing residents; and unemployed social
housing residents or those seeking a career in the
reuse sector. The LOWASTE project increased employment
by involving local companies in the market
for recycled materials it developed in Italy (see box).
In addition, disadvantaged people helped to develop
and create products made from recycled materials,
through local social cooperatives. The market provides
a good basis for the emergence of new forms
of entrepreneurship (e.g. start-ups, young cooperatives).
Long term, it is expected to have an impact
on the local economy, creating further new business
opportunities and jobs.
consumption
Local markets for recycled products
The LOWaste project (LIFE10 ENV/IT/000373)
aimed to reduce urban waste and preserve
natural resources by developing a local market
for recycled materials in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Several methods were used to achieve these
goals, such as promoting waste prevention and
encouraging the use of recovered materials, as
well as raising awareness of how waste can be
cut through reuse or the purchase of recycled
products, thus influencing consumption patterns.
In addition, the coordinating beneficiary,
the municipality of Ferrara, developed a green
public procurement programme that linked buying
procedures to the eco-design of products.
For instance, using recycled aggregates for
road construction and maintenance.
“The most important action was a contest - LO-
Waste for action - to create products with market
appeal,” says the project’s external technical support
manager, Alessandra Vaccari. “More than 70
designers, start-ups and other companies worked
together with the local authorities to create new
products from scraps and waste.” This enabled
the project to set up markets for so-called ‘reproducts’
in four categories - textiles, inert building
waste, urban furnishings and play equipment,
and food residues. Textiles were recycled to produce
goods such as shoes, bags, furniture coverings
and toys. Inert building waste was used as
base material for roads, or mixed with cement
in prototype panelling produced by a private sector
building company. Urban furnishings and play
equipment were refurbished or used for spareparts
storage, while food residues were collected
in a local school and transformed into compost,
which was reused in the school garden.
The re-products markets brought a range of
environmental benefits, including: direct waste
reductions of up to 11 400 tonnes per year; indirect
resource savings due to the use of secondary
raw materials of around 11 200 tonnes
of raw materials per year; estimated reductions
of up to 3 000 tonnes of CO 2
per year due to
non-disposal of waste and the use of secondary
raw materials; and a reduced water footprint of
more than 230 000 m 3 . Ms Vaccari says the
LOWaste model is easily replicable elsewhere,
“but the creation of re-products depends on the
materials and resources available in each territory
and on the presence of stakeholders that
can enhance those materials.”
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