So far so good: recent activities

The first few months of the LIFE reclaim project have gone so fast, and the Team has been kept quite busy. So, in a nutshell, here’s what we have been up to until today:

 

• The “Project Identity Manual” was created, which was our first piece of material created for communication purposes.

• The Team prepared the required Dossier to aquire the Permitting necessary for the additional activities inside the landfill. After many setbacks, rewriting and discussions with the relevant authorities, we finally got the Permit on the 1st of April (not joking!).

• The LIFE reclaim website went online, www.reclaim.gr, and will be further updated, so stay with us!

• We travelled to the landfill in Polygyros and other landfills in Greece, where we had interviews with the staff about the operation of the sites and their LFM potential.

• The programmed trips to Belgium (Flanders), Spain (Catalonia) and the Netherlands were realized, where we exchanged information on LFM and local experts shared their knowledge on the field (see pictures on the right).

• We produced a Technical report on Landfill Mining (LFM), covering the trips we took abroad, as well as past and current literature on the subject. See our World Map on the website.

• The Team conducted a Baseline Environmental and Social Conditions study of the area of the Polygyros Landfill, which covered the natural and man-made environment. This will be used to assess any potential impacts (positive and negative) of LFM activities.

• The Environmental & Social indicators for the Evaluation of the Project have also been drafted, to outline the methodology that can be used to assess any changes.

• Our Inception Report was delivered to the EC by the end of March, covering our progress so far in the project. This included annexed all of the aforementioned reports that were compiled so far.

• On the same day, we released our Newsletter, the first from many to come!

• Finally, we created a Questionnaire about landfills, which was sent to many actors and stakeholders of landfills in Europe. The Questionnaire is a vital part of our Landfill Inventory creation Action, and currently the Team is focusing on the following countries: Greece, Belgium (Flanders), Spain, the Netherlands and Cyprus.

 

Our future steps

The following actions are going to be carried out in the near future:

 

• Increase in Media engagement for the communication needs of the project via newsletters, website updates, the social media and use of the local media of Polygyros (radio, press, etc.) to inform the local community about the LIFE reclaim project.

• Collection of the information provided by the Questionnaires: with this information, the Team will produce a technical report and a digital inventory on the inventory of landfills of interest to landfill mining in Greece and selected EU countries, which will be used for the creation of the Web-GIS application which will present this data on the LIFE reclaim website.

• Preparation of two reports concerning the evaluation of the Baseline Environmental and the Baseline Social Impacts of the Project.

• Organisation of the first national Conference and a Workshop for the local community about the LIFE reclaim project

• Elaboration of a report covering the Mining Development Plan which will be followed during the LFM activities in the Polygyros landfill

 

Many more actions are planned, so stay tuned!