Some twenty experts and over a hundred people gather in Barcelona to discuss the importance of applying municipal waste prevention strategies.

Barcelona, July 2004

On the past 13th July, Barcelona was host to the 2nd Meeting on municipal waste prevention organised by the Centre català del reciclatge (CCR) of the Agència de Residus de Catalunya of the Department of the Environment and Housing of the Generalitat, Government of Catalonia.

The meeting welcomed Mrs. Genoveva Català, the Secretary General for Environment of the Generalitat, Government of Catalonia, and was closed with the Rt. Hon. Mr. Salvador Milà, Minister for the Environment and Housing of the Generalitat, Government of Catalonia.

The meting followed an intense programme and was structured into three blocks:

• The Administration as the driving force behind prevention: starting with the creation of policies, strategies and programmes, the evolution was presented of the waste prevention and recycling strategy of the European Union and the latest actions developed by the Agència de Residus to promote waste prevention in Catalonia.
• The integrated view of prevention: areas and types of action where different European and Catalan experiences were presented concerning waste prevention in the institutional, municipal and distribution areas.
• Round table on prevention as a shared responsability on three axes: consensus, commitment and joint participation. The participants represented distribution companies, municipal and institutional entities and consumer organisations.

The main conclusions of the meeting were the following:

• The need to establish a waste prevention regulatory framework that sets specific objectives and measures; and operative indicators of measures and follow-up.
• The establishment of specific measures to achieve more sustainable production and consumption.
• Prevention is a shared responsibility. Therefore, the implementation of specific measures necessarily means achieving the agreement, commitment and joint participation of all social and economic agents involved in waste prevention.

Finally, the meeting ended with the 10th anniversary of the Associació de Ciutats i Regions per al Reciclatge (ACRR), which offered an hors d'oeuvre after the meeting.

In addition to the sessions of talks, throughout the day the posters and materials published by the entities adhered to the Municipal waste prevention agreement were displayed, in addition to the material prepared by the Centre català del reciclatge (CCR) for the communication campaign “- is +”.

Centre català del reciclatge
Agència de Residus de Catalunya
Tel. 93 280 63 65
E-mail: ccr.arc.dmah@gencat.net