Cyprus’s environmental movement has grown from isolated advocacy into coordinated action. In 2021, four organisations united to form the Zero Waste Alliance Cyprus (ZWAC), and launched together food waste prevention projects, water refill stations, and zero waste city initiatives.
In 2025, they co-organised the Zero Trace Festival in Limassol, demonstrating that zero waste principles can work in real, public, urban settings, and that civil society, municipalities, cultural spaces, and citizens can genuinely collaborate. The festival was a gathering of people, artists, and communities, coming together not just to learn, but to connect, exchange, and imagine what comes next. A story of shared values turning into visible change.
Case study available in English.
The Croatian island of Krk is a summer tourism hotspot, welcoming up to six times its year-round population during peak months. Despite this major seasonal influx, the island’s seven municipalities and public waste company, Ponikve eko otok Krk d.o.o., have become a leading example of how to implement an effective, scalable Zero Waste strategy.
In 2024, Krk became the first island in Croatia – and only the second in the world – to earn full Zero Waste certification, marking the culmination of years of strategic improvements and community-driven action. Thanks to Ponikve’s ongoing commitment to innovation – combining clear, multilingual communication for residents and guests with strong investments in waste prevention and a Pay-As-You-Throw system that prioritises recycling and composting – Krk now boasts one of the lowest rates of residual waste generation and one of the highest separate collection rates in Croatia.
This case study highlights what makes Krk’s approach stand out, detailing the concrete measures behind its success, the results achieved, and the best practices that other European tourist destinations can replicate on their path toward a circular, zero-waste future.
Case study available in English, Croatian, and Portuguese.
In this interactive case study, we try to bring to life the work led by our member Zero Waste Montenegro during the #ForkToFarm project between 2024-25.
Montenegro continues to face significant pressure when it comes to its waste management, with organic waste central to this challenge as it represents around 40% of Montenegro’s waste stream. Most municipalities lack operational capacity and sufficient infrastructure for proper organic waste management. But this challenge is also an opportunity, given the speed at which decentralised, community-driven solutions can be implemented at a low cost to local authorities.
This case study combines data and qualitative analysis with visual footage and content of the work done by Zero Waste Montenegro over the last 2 years to improve the amount of organic waste which is composted rather than landfilled in its partner communities, which includes the capital city, Podgorica. It showcases the first working examples of decentralised organic waste solutions and their successful impact, with videos and interviews with the leaders behind these progressive policies.
(You can download the case study below in a ‘standard’ layout as well as in a PDF version of the interactive layout).
Case study available in English, Montenegrin, and French.
The carbon calculator is a tool designed to quantify the carbon impact of waste management strategies, with a strong focus on prevention and reuse. It enables cities to test different approaches, measure their potential impact before implementation, and make data-driven decisions to shape sustainable urban waste policies.
When applied to Barcelona, the tool assessed the city’s baseline emissions at 172,770 tonnes CO2e per year. It demonstrated how adopting a zero waste strategy could transform the city from a carbon emitter to a carbon saver. By modeling seven targeted actions, including waste prevention, improved recycling, and better organic waste management, Barcelona could slash emissions by over 187,000 tonnes CO2e annually.
Beyond emissions reduction, the tool helps cities monetise their carbon savings, potentially unlocking up to €150 million over a decade to finance sustainable waste management initiatives.
Available in English, Croatian, Estonian, German, and French.
This is the story of the LeydeResiduosYA platform, born from the need to ensure the full implementation of Spain’s 2022 waste law. The law introduced bold measures: banning hazardous chemicals in packaging, promoting reusable packaging, and setting ambitious waste reduction targets. Yet, progress stalled due to widespread industry resistance and weak enforcement.
By October 2023, NGOs like Alianza Residuo Cero recognised that only strong civil society pressure could break the deadlock. They united to launch LeydeResiduosYA, a platform dedicated to holding the government accountable for meeting reuse targets and implementing the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). This collaborative effort represents a powerful push for action, ensuring Spain’s waste law delivers on its promise.
In Slovakia, the municipality of Partizánske developed an innovative bio-waste programme by actively involving the community and bringing waste handling under local control. The initiative tackled kitchen and garden waste separately, promoting home composting and implementing tailored collection strategies for single-family households and multi-apartment buildings.
As a result, 95% of single-family households now compost at home, reducing mixed (non-recyclable) waste by 118 kg per person—a 36% drop—in the last 8 years. City-wide, mixed waste has decreased by 18%. Impressively, these achievements come with a net positive impact on the public budget, as savings have exceeded the programme’s costs.
Available in English, Croatian, Dutch, and Hungarian.
Gusinje, a rural municipality in Montenegro, has made remarkable progress towards zero waste in just 30 months. With support from Zero Waste Europe and active citizen participation, it has achieved key milestones in waste reduction and management.
Despite challenges common to underdeveloped regions, Gusinje embraced the EU-funded Montenegro and Albania Towards Zero Waste project, implementing strategic measures for waste reduction and recycling like a Material Recovery Facility and educational campaigns. This led to a significant drop in organic waste and higher recycling rates.
Education played a key role, promoting home composting and community cleanups. Looking ahead, Gusinje plans to strengthen waste management policies, serving as a model for other Montenegrin municipalities.
Available in English and Ukrainian.
The Sicilian municipality of Calatafimi Segesta may be small, but it provides one of Europe’s leading examples of how an island municipality can implement an effective zero waste strategy whilst also focusing on improving the lives of the local community. Despite receiving high-levels of tourism each year and having a dense, historic area in its centre, Calatafimi Segesta still achieved a 85% separate collection rate and generated just 88kgs of residual waste per person in 2022.
The municipality achieved these impressive results through a process of implementing a zero waste strategy at its core, with a focus on door-to-door collection of materials and the prioritisation of capturing organics, with supplementary incentives offered to residents who home composted. The decision not to build or extend local incineration capacity has allowed the municipality to implement ambitious policies that have delivered results.
Since its political commitment to become a Zero Waste City in 2011, the municipality has doubled the amount of materials separately collected for recycling and reuse. In this same timespan, they have reduced the volume of residual waste by two-thirds.
Available in English, Italian, Croatian, Estonian, and Ukrainian.
The German city of Tübingen took the pioneering steps of introducing a city wide tax on single-use plastic items, which formed just one part of a wider strategy to foster reuse within the city. The tax applied to both single-use cutlery (20 cents) and single-use packaging for food and beverage containers (50 cents).
The city supplemented this action to support businesses transition to reusable alternatives by providing subsidies for dishwashers and directly connecting them with companies who have the equipment and infrastructure already for reusable packaging. Whilst the legality of the tax is now under review within the German legal system, the story of Tübingen highlights how cities can take bold and important action to tackle the flood of single-use items on their streets.
In the wine industry, single-use glass is heavily used for packaging. On the one hand, glass has the greatest environmental impacts compared to other packaging materials (i.e. PET, aluminium, and beverage carton). On the other hand, glass is 100% reusable and 100% recyclable at the end of its life cycle, and is an inert material, which makes it more suitable as a food contact material.
The reWINE project proves that a circular and more sustainable way of consuming wine is possible.
Let’s start the tasting tour!
Available in Catalan, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Slovenian, and Spanish.
This report, produced by Zero Waste Latvia, provides information about the waste that cannot be recycled, which ends up in a lightweight packaging container, its composition and the mistakes most often made by the public. Based on the results obtained, the report’s authors make recommendations to manufacturers and decision-makers to promote correct sorting of waste, improve communication intended for the public and take other strategic measures to improve the waste management system.
In 2011, the city of Milan started implementing an ambitious scheme to separately collect bio-waste and recycle it. With 1.4 million inhabitants and an extremely densely populated area, this wasn’t an easy task as bio-waste collection schemes are more difficult to set up in big cities. However, after 10 years, Milan is now one of the leading examples, with 95 kilograms of bio-waste collected per inhabitant and a 62% waste collection rate.
With the 1 January 2024 deadline for all EU Member States to collect bio-waste separately, the story of Milan shows how other cities across Europe can follow in their footsteps to effectively collect and manage food waste, even in the challenging circumstances that large, densely-populated cities provide.
Available in English, Italian, French, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Hungarian.
In Newport County, the social enterprise company Wastesavers has been working with the Council to implement one of the best structured separate collection systems in Europe today. In 2019 Newport not only achieved a recycling rate of 66%, but it also offers one of the lowest cost for households within Wales, supplemented by having high-quality recyclables with a low contamination rate.
The story of Newport shows that when separate collection systems prioritise quality over just quantity, and invest heavily in meaningfully engaging with the community, combined with well-designed equipment, world-leading results can be achieved whilst simultaneously reducing costs for local residents.
The impact of all the waste that is generated in Europe continues to be felt in countries and communities thousands of miles away. This case study illustrates the impacts inflicted by international waste trade upon Malaysia and shows how the country has responded.
Available in English
The German municipality of Munich committed to going beyond recycling by investing in a zero waste strategy focused on reuse and repair.
The case study focused on the experience of Halle 2, the flagship reuse hub of Munich that sits at the heart of its circular economy strategy. By selling goods that are collected across the 12 Munich Recycling Centers and then repaired, Halle 2 extends the lifespan of useful everyday items that would otherwise have become waste. AWM, the public company that owns the reuse hub, calculates around 1,000 tonnes of items are reused or repaired at Halle 2 each year.
In July 2020, Munich’s City Council passed a resolution affirming its commitment to developing a robust circular economy and zero waste strategy.
Within just 5 years, the city of Prelog in northern Croatia has tripled the percentage of its separately collected waste. The city has reduced the amount of the mixed waste local residents produce to below 100 kg per capita, becoming a zero waste best practice in Croatia and beyond.
How did this happen, in spite of much criticism saying the set goals were unattainable and ‘utopian’ for the Croatian context?
- Door-to-door separate waste collection
- Construction of new local waste management infrastructures
- Create a fair but profitable system
- Effective education & communication programmes for citizens
- Strong cooperation between the NGO Zelena akcija / Friends of the Earth Croatia / Zero Waste Croatia, the city of Prelog, and 11 other neighbouring municipalities (of different political affiliations) operated by the public company PRE-KOM from Prelog.
The story of Prelog and their waste management company PRE-KOM showcases the diversity of zero waste. When done successfully – through background research, effective communication and education programmes for citizens, the building of proper infrastructure and flexibility within the system to adapt and improve, zero waste is a strategy that can be successfully implemented in a wide range of contexts seen across Europe.
This Case Study written by ToxicoWatch puts the spotlight on the REC Dutch waste incineration plant, highlighting current failures to provide transparency, clear policy guidance and effective implementation.
Available in English.
Zero Waste Europe releases its new Consumption & Production Case Study, which promotes zero waste business models: The Story of Too Good To Go, a fast growing company making the link between shops whose food is about to be wasted and consumers who love a good deal.
Available in English, French, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese and German.