Due to intensive human activities in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea, waste is a significant pressure on water and coastal environments. Such threats are especially important in areas where dumpsites are still used. Growing consumption is generating changes in the composition of waste, including ‘new’ waste streams such as electronic.

E-waste exposes a high environmental risk for MED, as informal recycling and e-waste abandoned in dumping sites provide hazardous substances a way to seed into groundwater, affecting water sources, aquifers and sea water. The unification of waste management criteria in the transnational MED area is essential, since otherwise it could facilitate the dynamization of the illegal movement of e-waste from areas with stricter regulations towards areas with more permissive regulations. To stop this threat, it is necessary to take into account common joint planning, and coordinated business promotion.

The eWAsTER project aims to promote local and regional policies for better e-waste management, to reduce e-waste environmental damage in the selected areas, while promoting new innovative eco-business models based on the conversion of the currently lineal electrical and electronic (E&E) sector into a sustainable circular model.

eWAsTER doesn’t present e-waste as a source of environmental damage, but an opportunity to create an INNOVATIVE SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY through the valorisation of this waste.

• Partners and involved stakeholder organisations will increase their institutional capacity for e-waste management, eco-business promotion, and circular economy business promotion.
• Joint strategies and action plans taken up by organisations: it is expected that Local Action Plans will be endorsed and signed by the corresponding public authority with capacity to implement it, together with the partners, technical partners and associated partners which will contribute to the implementation of the Action Plan. Local Action Plans will be drafted for Mediterranean e-waste prevention and management.
• Solutions taken up or up-scaled by organisations: It is expected that partners having tested one of the solutions will adopt this solution or include the details for the uptaken process in the Local Action Plans to be endorsed.

Lead partner: Alentejo Science and Technology Park (PACT), Portugal

Project partners:

• Municipality of Rethymno, Greece
• Marche Region, Italy
• Environmental Research Institute (ORZ), Slovenia
• Municipality of Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Union of Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities (UBBSLA), Bulgaria
• Union of the Municipalities Pian del Bruscolo (UCPB), Italy
• Provincial Waste Consortium of Malaga (RSU-Malaga), Spain
• Association LiNK Entrepreneurial Center, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Aradippou Municipality, Cyprus