The H2020 European WASTE4Think Project seeks to design solutions based on the use of information and communication technologies that would enable the improvement of all waste management stages, adopting a global approach and particularly focusing on citizen participation in order to build more sustainable, eco-friendly cities.

The project kicked off in June 2016 and is being undertaken by an international consortium of 4 public agencies, 3 research centres, 7 SMEs, 2 large enterprises, a business cluster and an NGO from Spain, Greece, Portugal Italy, Denmark and Germany. The project has a duration of three and a half years and a budget of €9 million. The Project leader is Deusto University from Bilbao (Spain). 

MOBA is the leader of one of the WorkPackages (WP2) for the “Development of computer assisted integral waste management systems”. The tasks for MOBA are distributed between MOBA Dresden and MOBA Spain. We are developing under this project tools for Pay As You Throw (PAYT), for the optimization of the waste collection and for the circular economy. They include the development of special features for the on-board computer Mini-operand, the MOBA Cloud communication software, and MAWIS U2 management software.  All the developed tools will be tested in a pilot project in the city of Cascais in Portugal, and, all data gathered is going to be interfaced from MAWIS U2 to a FIWARE software platform. FIWARE is an open platform developed under another important EU funding called to be the standard to connect sensors in Smart Cities, companies,… and much more. The total funding of the Waste4think project for MOBA developments and pilot implementation will be around 660.000€.

We are just now in the first anniversary of the project, we have already done one year of progress in the Waste4think tasks, and, we are going to celebrate in June the third big project meeting with all participants in Seveso (Italy).

Now is the right time to implement projects like Waste4think to support and promote an improved waste management which can increase recycling rates in Southern European countries. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, still have a very low waste recycling rates. All of them are looking at policies to increase waste separation and some of them are already starting to implement Pay as You Throw (PAYT) policies. And, not surprisingly, these are the countries were Waste4think pilots are running. 

We, in MOBA, are constantly developing new products and projects were innovation plays a key role. The participation in big EU projects like Waste4think gives us the opportunity to share knowledge and ideas with a big international group carrying a wide variety of expertise who, like us, share the goal to have a more sustainable and greener planet to live.

For more information on the Waste4think project visit: www.waste4think.eu

Climent Vilatersana

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 688995.

The dissemination of results herein reflects only the author’s view and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.