UrbanWINS

UrbanWINS will study how cities consume resources and products, and how they eliminate the waste produced, in order to develop and test innovative plans and solutions aimed at improving waste prevention and management. The project will analyse current strategies for waste prevention and management in a total of 24 cities and assess how they contribute towards resilience and resource efficiency. The project will follow the urban metabolism approach, in which cities are considered living organisms that use natural resources and create a flow of materials and energies. The results will be used to define objectives and indicators of the Strategic Plans for Waste Prevention and Management in the eight pilot cities. Active participation from citizens, governments, organisations, suppliers, research institutes and educational centres is foreseen through physical and online urban agoras in the eight pilot cities, where participants will share opinions, discuss ideas and plan solutions. The participatory approach is an added value of UrbanWINS, as the vision of all relevant players for waste production and management at urban level will be taken into account to co-develop new strategies and co-test innovative solutions. Recommendations and tools will be transferable to other urban contexts. The final outcome of the project will be a toolkit for participatory and science-based decision-making and planning for waste management that can be applied in any public authority across Europe.