Study Visit on Bulky Waste Management to Denmark and Sweden

The purpose of the study visit was to get acquainted with the structures and initiatives of Copenhagen, Gothenburg and Malmö in the recycling of bulky waste and the operation of material reuse centres. The visit included six material reuse centres: three in Copenhagen, two in Gothenburg and one in Malmo. The material recycling centres that hosted the mission mainly operated on municipal land, in the vicinity of the Municipality’s recycling plants, and in most cases, the Municipality also covered the salary costs of their operation.

The best organized and closer to the Greek reality were those managed by the Municipality, having created a unique service for their operation. The partnership between the Municipality, the waste management and reuse companies and the social services in Gothenburg was impressive, where, in addition to the collection, sorting and reuse unit, a social restaurant operated in the same area, staffed by vulnerable social groups, the unemployed and people in reintegration and open to all the “customers” of the material unit.

The participants were also interested in the Malmo municipal reuse unit, which gave the feeling of a well-organised supermarket of reused materials, with full sustainability, minimal staff (only eight people for a 500 sq. meters space) and profitability, which was returned as income to the Municipality. It is worth noting that all the examples of plants included in the visit were sustainable and with high reuse rates of their materials in countries where the culture of reuse is, of course, well established.

The visit concluded with a summary of what was presented during the trip and highlighting examples that could be adopted in Kavala city. In the framework of this project, Kavala has created an electronic platform for the management of bulky materials, which is expected to be presented in the coming weeks, and in the next phase, a small workshop for the processing of materials will be attempted. Municipality of Kavala is implementing EUKI project CURE+ in cooperation with the Riga Energy Agency (leading the project), the City of Tartu, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Elisava Barcelona School of Engineering and Design. The project aims to improve the management of municipal waste through the reuse of useful waste by respecting the principles of the circular economy