ZERO WASTE EUROPE

At the end of March, I had the pleasure of attending the annual Zero Waste Cities conference for municipalities, wonderfully organised by our colleagues in Slovakia, Friends of the Earth – SPZ (FoE – SPZ).  Departing from Brussels, following one night train, two day trains, two buses and a shared car ride with the organisers, […]

The post Insights from the 2026 edition of the Zero Waste Cities conference in Slovakia appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

The International Day of Zero Waste on 30 March (Zero Waste Day for short) holds different meanings for different people – for some, it is a very high-level formalised event, as it was first designated by the United Nations on the initiative of the First Lady of Türkiye. For others, like the Zero Waste Europe […]

The post Zero Waste Day: Your food scraps are heating the climate – here is how to avoid it appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

In early March, Zero Waste Europe brought together over 70 city representatives, solution providers, producers, packaging experts, funders and waste practitioners from all over Europe for a two-day study visit to Denmark. The ‘Reuse in action: a tale of two cities’ visit showed how Copenhagen and Aarhus are already making reuse systems work for businesses […]

The post Denmark is making reuse the norm: learnings from the study visit to Copenhagen and Aarhus appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

During the 11-12 March, I was invited to join a study tour to Sardinia organised as part of the Interreg Euro-MED CirBiowaste project funded by Interreg Europe, where our ZWE members ZERO (Portugal) and ECOREC (Greece) core partners. We were fortunate enough to get to spend 2 days touring the capital Cagliari and neighbouring municipalities, […]

The post How Sardinia uses economics to underpin its collection success appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

In September 2025, a joint project between Zero Waste Europe and behavioural science experts Sapience, was approved for funding from the European Commission and the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). The project, “NAFW – Targeted Nudges to Prevent Food Waste”, is a 2-year initiative focused on identifying effective nudges that can reduce household […]

The post Nudges Against Food Waste: how to turn smart food habits into everyday practice in European households? appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

It’s time to discover and learn more about the people behind Zero Waste Europe’s work and magic! In addition to the ZWE Changemakers series, where you can learn more about our member organisations, we invite you to get a closer look at our staff, what they do, and what inspires them to work for a […]

The post #MeetTheTeam – Ana Oliveira appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

Walking through Barangay Potrero in Metro Manila*, you see and experience the narrow but clean streets, small houses, “sari-sari” stores (convenience stores typical of the Philippines). Nearby, a waste workers cooperative takes a leading role in the system – they run a Material Recovery Facility (MRF), organise the local waste separate collection into four fractions […]

The post Solutions from the ground up: reflections from a global convening of zero waste activists appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

This is a conversation I have had with many people in Europe, and the first instinct is always to look at the best performing systems in the Old Continent and see how to extrapolate this approach to other countries. This methodology has been trialled many times, and my experience of decades of work in both […]

The post If you were to design a Deposit Return System (DRS) for the Global South, how would you do it? appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

Working no matter what’s happening – this is how the daily operations of Ukrainian waste management companies can be described during the war. Despite severe shortages of funding, time, and staff, they continue to operate under extremely difficult conditions and are still creating change in local waste management systems. As participants in the “Zero Waste […]

The post Creating сhanges despite the crisis: waste management companies in Ukraine appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.

Back in 2006, the foundations of what became Zero Waste Europe were laid by a small group of civil society groups and communities. Their conviction was simple: waste isn’t inevitable, and that no one and nothing should be disposable. Twenty years on, that idea matters more than ever.  We enter 2026 in a world going […]

The post New year, clear choice: we’re not racing to the bottom appeared first on Zero Waste Europe.