- ‘Terceros en edad, primeros en reciclar’ has been in place for six months in the Active Participation Center in the south part of Logroño
- The project, which ran between December 2017 and June of this year, brought recycling closer to the region’s elderly through activities, workshops and inter-generational initiatives and will now be expanded to other regions of Spain in an effort to raise awareness about recycling and environmental protection to as many senior citizens as possible.
This morning, the Minister of Social Policies, Family, Equality and Justice of the Government of La Rioja, Conrado Escobar, and the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Ecoembes, Francisco Ariza, presented the results of the ‘Terceros en edad, primeros en reciclar’ (oldest in age, first to recycle) program, a pilot project that was implemented at the Active Participation Center in the south of Logroño.
In his speech, the councilman of the Rioja Government, Conrado Escobar, was appreciative of this program’s initiative, which has brought recycling to older people: “the Government of La Rioja wants to thank Ecoembes for implementing this pilot project in one of our active participation centers, an initiative that has been well received by our seniors and that has helped to strengthen the culture of recycling among them and in the center itself. It has also had an inter-generational effect, an approach that we are particularly committed to in our centers”.
For his part, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Ecoembes, Francisco Ariza, commented that “with nearly 200 participants in total, we can say that this pilot program has been a success, which encourages us to start with a new recycling program for seniors involving a series of new and appealing activities, which we will replicate in other centers for the elderly”. Ariza added that “today, as their final activity, all of the project’s participants had a chance to tour the headquarters of TheCircularLab, our circular economy innovation laboratory, where we develop different initiatives aimed at helping citizens to recycle better, something that requires taking all ages into account”.
This pilot project consisted of designing and developing a series of activities – workshops, excursions and inter-generational initiatives – intended to connect with the elderly, bringing them closer to recycling through their needs, interests and aspirations so they can play an active role in caring for the environment.
Driving the Circular Economy
TheCircularLab (TCL) is Europe’s first circular economy innovation center. Created in Logroño (La Rioja) in May 2017 by Ecoembes, the environmental organization that promotes the circular economy by recycling packaging, it aims to pursue the latest and greatest innovations in the field of packaging and its subsequent recycling. The TCL, in collaboration with companies, government agencies and the public, studies, designs, tests and applies in real environments the best practices for every phase of the life cycle of packaging, from its conception until it is reintroduced into the consumption cycle through new products. Specifically, the TCL is active in four areas of innovation: packaging of the future, public awareness, SmartWaste and entrepreneurship.
Through its public awareness efforts, TheCircularLab has set up a direct, ongoing and efficient means of communication that increases the public’s involvement in recycling. In addition, it has developed an information platform that uses the capabilities of Big Data to learn about and target the public’s habits and attitudes toward everything related to recycling.
