On Thursday 8 October 2020, the Economic House of Ostend announced the start of the new European project Upcycle Your Waste. This project is intended to stimulate companies and SMEs to examine their waste streams and to reuse or recycle waste from now on.
With its European employment projects, the Economic House Ostend supports companies in their staffing needs by helping them fill their vacancies. With the new European funded project ‘Upcycle Your Waste’ the Economic House Ostend wants to further stimulate SMEs and set up actions to ensure that innovative solutions for a circular economy are implemented. Concretely, the ‘Upcycle Your Waste’ project wants to jointly map the waste flows of companies within the Plassendale zone and increase the circular treatment of these waste flows.
‘Upcycle Your Waste’ is a free programme to support SMEs in dealing with waste streams and unwanted by-products. The aim is to convert this waste into new raw materials, support the circular economy and contribute to a more sustainable planet. At the same time ‘Upcycle Your Waste’ enables companies to save on waste-related costs.
“The mission of the project and of the Economic House Ostend is to actively guide SMEs step by step towards circular solutions. The Economic House Ostend wants to help companies to bring down organisational, technical, financial, knowledge or other barriers that companies are confronted with when implementing circularity. That’s why ‘Upcycle Your Waste’ acts on a local level, in close cooperation between local companies, researchers and local authorities”, says Alderman of Enterprise of the city of Ostend Charlotte Verkeyn.
To achieve this, the programme will provide tailor-made knowledge for businesses, demonstrate practical circular solutions, set up more efficient waste processes and facilitate cooperation between SMEs and their relevant stakeholders. Researchers and public authorities from the UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium will work together in a unique international partnership. Over the next two years, the partners will help companies in six selected pilot regions to upgrade their waste. In addition, they will gain insight into the international knowledge built up during the project.
The Economic House Ostend is one of the eight partners in this European project and will, for a period of two years, encourage companies from the Ostend region to participate in ‘Upcycle Your Waste’. VIVES participates in the project as a knowledge partner, which strengthens the Ostend section in terms of content and resources. Among other things, VIVES will make students available to realise the project and develop the model of an exchange platform for recyclable products and good practices.
Upcycle Your Waste’ is financed by the Interreg 2 Seas programme which is part of the European Regional Development Fund.
