Central Corfu Municipality wins award for recycling websites

The Central Corfu Mayor Meropi Ydraiou received the Municipality's award at the 1st Annual Smart Cities Exhibition last Saturday at the Zappeion Hall. The award is for the creation of websites related to new infrastructure and actions for recycling and circular economy.

Starting literally from scratch, the Municipality has done a great work in the field of recycling, creating the basis and conditions for recycling to proceed at an even faster pace in the next four years:

- 8 new separate waste collection streams were created. Through these 8 streams over 3,000 tons of recyclable materials have been collected.

- 51 recycling spots for batteries have been set up, 40 for cigarette butts, 25 for clothing and footwear, 20 for light bulbs, 10 for electrical and electronic appliances, 10 for ink cartridges and 1 for the free collection of non-expired medicines.

- The first marine litter collection station was created.

- The 'Let's Recycle' programme was implemented as part of the Followgreen competition in all the schools of the Municipality.

- Composters were installed in the Municipality's primary schools.

- The recycle.corfu.gr platform was activated - a pioneering action to inform, raise awareness and provide citizens with constant information, in both English and Greek, about the available solutions for the separate collection of waste streams offered within the Municipality.

By the end of 2023, the Municipality will develop for the first time municipal separate collection networks for specific waste streams such as used cooking oils and fats, paper and cardboard with 1,100 yellow bins, and plastic and metal objects with more than 150 red bins.

As for organic waste or biowaste, 1,000 brown bins, 2,000 composters and 20 containers for green waste and its separate collection are expected to be received.

The necessary steps have been taken to set up public facilities to support the efficient separate collection and management of waste, such as at least 2 Green Spots, 5 Mobile Green Spots and 15 "smart" Recycling Spots with a refund system.

"In the autumn of 2019, when we took over, we had two main objectives:

1) To move forward with the waste transfer, which some people told us could not be done.

2) To create, almost from scratch, infrastructure, programmes and recycling actions.

We have achieved these objectives. Everyone can compare what exists now to what existed 4 years ago.

This award belongs to all our citizens, this success is shared by all of us," said Mayor Meropi Ydraiou, speaking immediately after the award ceremony.

This award is the second one in 2023. The first one was in the "Greek Green Awards 2023" for its actions in environmental protection.