Tilos has built a reputation as a testing ground for Greece's green ambitions, becoming the first Greek island to ban hunting in 1993 and, in 2018, becoming one of the first islands in the Mediterranean to run mainly on wind and solar power.įor its "Just Go Zero" project, the island teamed up with Polygreen, a Piraeus-based network of companies promoting a circular economy, which aims to design waste and pollution out of supply chains. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Sebastien Malo HIGH-VALUE TRASH
Workers sort through municipal waste at a Polygreen factory located on the island of Tilos, Greece, on June 30, 2022. "Every project or programme needs to pay attention to these contexts in order to implement solutions for waste reduction and treatment." "Technical solutions can be up-scaled, but socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts are always different," he said. Getting rid of landfills can also slow the release of methane, another potent greenhouse gas produced when organic materials like food and vegetation are buried in landfills and rot in low-oxygen conditions.Īnd green groups note that -waste schemes can generate more jobs than landfill disposal or incineration as collecting, sorting and recycling trash is more labour-intensive.īut reaching zero waste isn't as simple as following Tilos' lead - each region or city generates and handles rubbish differently, said researcher Dominik Noll, who works on sustainable island transitions at Vienna's Institute of Social Ecology. Recycling can lower planet-warming emissions by reducing the need to manufacture new products with raw materials, whose extraction is carbon-heavy, Komilis added. Still, "we are quite backward when it comes to recycling and reusing here," said Dimitrios Komilis, a professor of solid waste management at the Democritus University of Thrace, in northern Greece. Greece has taken some steps against throwaway culture, such as making stores charge customers for single-use plastic bags. That's a far cry from EU targets to recycle or prepare for reuse 55% of municipal waste by weight by 2025 and 65% by 2035. In 2019, the country recycled and composted only a fifth of its municipal waste, placing it 24th among 27 countries ranked by the EU's statistics office. The island's performance contrasts with that of Greece at large. This is the first step (and) it's not easy."
#Recycle sign how to#
"We know how to win races," said Tilos' deputy mayor Spyros Aliferis. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Sebastien Malo Tilos' triumph over trash puts it ahead in an inter-island race of sorts, as Greece plays catch-up to meet stringent recycling goals set by the European Union (EU) and as institutions, companies and governments around the world adopt zero-waste policies in efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.Ī man places a can in a recycling bin in Tilos, Greece, on July 1, 2022. "We need a permanent and more ecological answer." "The closing of the landfill was the right solution," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Now it recycles up to 86% of its rubbish, a record high in Greece, according to authorities, and the landfill is shut.Ĭhatzifountas said it took only a month to get used to separating his trash into three bins - one for organic matter the other for paper, plastic, aluminium and glass and the third for everything else. Six decades later, in December last year, the island launched a major campaign to fix its pollution problem. The garbage site had become a growing blight on the island of now 500 inhabitants, off Greece's south coast, since ships started bringing over packaged goods from neighbouring islands in 1960.
TILOS, Greece, July 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Before the tiny Greek island of Tilos became a big name in recycling, taverna owner Aristoteles Chatzifountas knew that whenever he threw his restaurant's trash into a municipal bin down the street it would end up in the local landfill.
Greece's Tilos island recycles a record 86% of its trash.From shunning plastic to composting cigarettes, places like Tilos and Paros are ramping up efforts to reach zero waste and cut carbon emissions
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