INTHERWASTE

Cities are places where environmental performance management is of utmost importance: in the majority of them there is a concentration of unsustainable behaviours in terms of waste management, energy efficiency or mobility. Heritage Cities share this fact with other cities but, in addition, the preservation of heritage and the management of significant amounts of waste, due to high tourist and economic activity levels, make the observance of waste-related strategies by authorities, private actors and households of specific importance.  Heritage cities share different characteristics:

•  Historical artistic heritage, which leads to permanent flows of tourists, remarkable economic activity and significant production of related waste
• Mostly ancient cities with winding city centres where ordinary waste management methods and equipment hardly work
• Need to observe aesthetic criteria for interventions in urban protected spaces, waste- field interventions included
• Visibility to the rest of the world

Improving local and regional policies for sustainable waste management in Heritage Cities. Even though Heritage Cities have probably developed interesting solutions and policies in many fields, running waste-related services is complicated in such scenarios. In such a framework, the aim of INTHERWASTE is European Heritage Cities to exchange experiences and policies for efficient and sustainable management of municipal waste and  in order to contribute  through mutual capacity-building, policy learning and drafting action plans - to the environmental performance of waste management in EU cities.The capacity of the staff of involved authorities to design and implement policies and measures in the waste field and governance in the same field are expected to be improved, too. Solutions and policies proved feasible in INTHERWASTE are believed to be transferable to most Heritage Cities as well as to non-heritage (less-demanding contexts) cities in the EU. The visibility of Heritage Cities worldwide can help reduplicate experiences identified in many other cities.   One project, Four steps

1. Learning and exchanging best practices and policies
2. Integrating this knowledge into concrete action plans
3. Monitoring the action plans implemented in each city
4. Sharing the solutions and policies with other European cities

Watch our video to discover more about INTHERWASTE & waste management in Heritage cities