EWWR common actions in Europe
Media and monitoring actions implemented in the past editions of the EWWR
The organisation of several Batucamobs in 2010 as a common action carried out by EWWR Organisers throughout Europe turned out to be so successful, that in 2011 the European Week for Waste Reduction introduced more common actions happening across Europe. These common actions mean that the same type of action will be happening in various European territories during the Week.
What is a EWWR common action?
Common actions are actions that are implemented during the EWWR in different places in Europe using the same methodology and sharing the objective of highlighting their real impact on waste reduction. The EWWR Secretariat provides the Organisers and Project Developers specific background documents, methodology and communication for their implementation.
There are 5 categories of common actions, focusing on 4 symbolic issues plus a global sensitization action:
1 Paper waste reduction:
Paper waste prevention within administrations
Paper waste prevention at school
Paper waste prevention within your company
(Waste less in canteens)
(Waste watcher, Repairing workshop)
4 Excessive packaging waste reduction
(Waste free meeting)
It is to be noted that Clean-up days are global awareness raising actions, during which people will be motivated to collect illegally dumped waste from the nature. The area to be cleaned up can be for instance a forest, a beach, a river, a mountain, or even the streets of a town. The Clean-up day has the potential to sensitize a large audience about waste prevention because the action will end with all the participants seeing the amount of waste that they just removed from nature.
Why have common actions?
The aim of these common actions is multiple:
- To create a pan-European community of actions during the Week and reinforce the link between the participating territories
- To measure and to inform about the waste avoided by targeted actions implemented during the Week
- To attract the interest of European, national and local media
Really Rubbish Orchestra in Belfast © Belfast City Council
- By measuring the waste avoided, the actions will meet one of the most important expectations of the European Commission: the assessment of the real impact on waste reduction. There will be an evaluation of the actions’ results at European level. This is to show that the EWWR does not only impact on European citizens’ behaviour, but also on waste reduction itself.
How to organise and implement EWWR common actions?
Factsheets on all common actions have been prepared and are now available in French and English in the EWWR website. They include practical guidelines for each action: the objectives, the time-line of implementation, a list of required material as well as the process and the quantification method for waste avoided. Basically the factsheets will tell the users why a certain action should be organized, and how it can be done.
You can find more information on all the common actions on the factsheets:
- Paper waste reduction:
Paper waste prevention within administrations
Paper waste prevention at school
Paper waste prevention within your company
No junk mail in letterboxes - Food waste reduction
- Repair/reuse
- Excessive packaging waste reduction
- Clean-up days
