The two Catalan candidates, the municipal council of Mollet del Vallès and the SETEM Catalunya Association, are finalists in the 15th European Waste Prevention Awards. They are two of the four Catalan projects that the Catalan Waste Agency entered in this year's competition. The awards will be presented at a ceremony at the MUCEM in Marseilles on 18 June.

The projects were selected taking into account the activities' links with the criteria of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR), which took place last November: the originality of the proposal, its innovative character, its adaptability to other regional and local contexts, the mobilisation of the target recipients, and the duration.

Mollet del Vallès Municipal Council's Zero Packaging Market campaign created a day free of disposable packaging in the municipal market, distributed 468 reusable containers to users, and contributed to a direct reduction in waste generation in the market, as well as setting up an information point dealing with the problem of disposable plastic packaging. The campaign was centred around a participatory process involving the municipal market stalls, the general public, the various institutions within the Municipal Council, and the third-year students of Aiguaviva Secondary School in Mollet.

The school projects against Textile and Electronic Waste project of the SETEM Catalunya Association presented its results during the European Week for Waste Reduction. Sixteen schools (8 in Barcelona and 8 in Rubí) competed to collect, repair and reuse textile waste and electrical and electronic devices, providing a total of 4.7 tonnes of textiles collected in Barcelona and 11,000 electronic devices in Rubí. The students organised swap meets, repair workshops and information campaigns during the competition. The initiative had significant levels of mobilisation and had a high public profile, with appearances on local television channels and Televisió de Catalunya (TV3).

More than 252 organisations with 1,086 activities all over Catalonia

The European Waste Prevention Awards honours initiatives carried out during the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR), taking into account their originality, innovation, adaptability to other regional and local contexts, mobilisation of the target recipients, and duration. A total of 14,522 activities were organised all over Europe during the most recent Week, which took place in 35 regions in 29 countries last November. In Catalonia 1,086 events were organised by 252 public and private institutions in 39 regions.

This initiative has taken place in Catalonia since 2008, and is coordinated by the Catalan Waste Agency. Awareness-raising initiatives and waste prevention strategies are carried out all over Europe during the same week. This year, the 16th European Week for Waste Reduction will take place from 16 to 24 November 2024, and focus on food waste.