URBAN WASTE ("Urban Strategies for Waste Management in Tourist Cities") is a three-year research project funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 research program under the coordination of the Government of the Canary Islands. URBANWASTE's goal is to develop environmentally friendly and innovative waste prevention and management strategies for selected high-tourist cities to reduce urban waste production and promote reuse, recycling, waste collection and disposal. European cities are among the most important tourist destinations worldwide. The UNWTO estimates more than 1.1 billion tourist arrivals worldwide in 2015, more than 600 million of them in Europe alone. The tourism sector, on the one hand, is thus an essential economic engine but, on the other hand, also has negative effects such as: A high consumption of resources (water, energy), and also significantly influences the waste generation in tourist regions. Compared to other cities, tourist cities are faced with particular challenges in terms of waste management and waste prevention due to the seasonality of tourism, the specificities of the tourism industry and the large number of tourists as waste producers. For 2011, UNEP estimates that tourism accounts for 14% of municipal waste worldwide. Efficient waste management is also an important aspect for tourist cities to maintain their attractiveness. The results of this project will help policymakers address these tourism-related waste management challenges. Within the framework of URBANWASTE, the metabolism of 11 selected pilot regions (pilot cases) is analyzed. The concept of "urban metabolism", a comprehensive and integrative concept, with which waste and tourism can be analyzed systematically and effectively, is used for this actual state analysis (status quo analysis). At the same time, best practice models in the area of waste management are identified and a participatory process is initiated, involving all relevant stakeholders, such as representatives of local and regional authorities and waste management associations. On the basis of the outputs from this process, the best practice models as well as the results of the status quo analysis, specific solutions for tourist regions are developed and implemented and evaluated in the 11 URBANWASTE pilot cases. The evaluation of the waste management strategies developed in the project is intended to ensure their transferability to other cities. In addition to strategies for the prevention and management of waste, which have been developed in a participatory manner to support political decision-makers, as well as the exploration of how tourism activities can influence urban metabolism together with further influencing factors (eg urban basic structures, architecture, lifestyles, behavioral patterns, socio-economic aspects, etc.) , URBANWASTE is also developing a WasteApp. This WasteApp is intended to appeal to tourists, influence their waste behavior and thus support the implementation of the strategies developed in URBANWASTE. The project start of URBANWASTE took place in June 2016 with a project kick-off meeting in Tenerife. The project duration is 36 months. URBANWASTE's multi-stakeholder project consortium consists of 27 partners from 12 European countries and brings together leading universities and other research institutions with representatives of local and regional authorities and waste management associations from destinations that are experiencing a high volume of tourism. Based on his many years of experience in the fields of waste prevention, waste technology and life cycle assessment (LCA), as well as the associated evaluation methods, the ABF-BOKU can use this scientific expertise in the collection of the actual state in selected destinations ("URBANWASTE Pilot cases ") as well as in the evaluation of the changes that result from the implementation of the strategies in these pilot cases.
DI Gudrun Obersteiner
