Provision of a web tool on bio-waste prevention for local authorities in Europe | Proposition d'un outil en ligne sur la prévention des biodéchets pour les collectivités locales en Europe

The European community cannot address the issue of bio-waste solely in terms of collection and waste management, as such activities generate costs. Today, waste prevention in Europe must involve waste reduction and prevention at a local level, targeting all producers of bio-waste, not only consumers and households, and promoting the use of a number of waste reduction practices including composting, mulching, grinding, use of slow-growing plant species, using bio-waste as animal feed, reducing food wastage and the use of ramial wood chips. The Miniwaste project, supported by the European Life+ program (2010-2012), aims to provide evidence that it is possible to significantly reduce the production of bio-waste generated in the European Union, as well as provide tools and points of further reflection on bio-waste prevention. The partnership (Rennes Métropole, Irstea, City of Brno, LIPOR in Porto, and ACR+) wishes to set up a computerised tool for local authorities within Europe. This project will help users to conduct a bio-waste management programme including territorial diagnosis, the implementation and monitoring of specific preventive actions and the evaluation of these actions. The overall structure will be based on three different modules: 1-A decision making assistance module that includes a territorial diagnosis chart offering several scenarios associated with different potential possible actions in the field of bio-waste prevention: Composting (home, community, apartment blocks, vermi-composting, catering services), food waste (household,restaurant), smart gardening and animal feeding. The territorial diagnosis is produced on the scale chosen by the user in order to get homogeneous data. It could be a neighbourhood, district, town, etc. For a given sector, the decision making module consists in entering data of 15 territorial indicators in terms of population, current waste management and current preventive actions on the territory, etc. Meanwhile, a calculation of potential waste reduction is processed by the computer using an algorithm. The result of the diagnosis is displayed for the whole territory and for each sector according to the list defined. Corresponding to the results, synthetic worksheets are proposed as a real decision making tool with the following information: target, type of waste concerned, linked indicators, main actions, participants involved, materials necessary, personnel necessary, an estimate of cost, and expected results. With such information (diagnosis and worksheets), the users are able to choose one or several preventive actions to implement in their territory. 2-Some guidelines to implement the actions and especially some data sheets proposing activity indicators and impact indicators: depending on the preventive actions chosen, the user can download the corresponding procedural sheet which explains step by step how to implement the actions in detail. Moreover, a data sheet is available with a list of relevant indicators (awareness, number of composters, etc.) 3-A results display module, producing graphs to help visualise the results. This web tool will be available on the Miniwaste website by subscription, from 2013 (www.miniwaste.eu). More information will be provided and a tool demonstration will be organized during the final conference scheduled in Rennes in November 2012.