The socio-economic impact of tourism is extraordinary in cities, but it brings at the same time a range of negative externalities, including high levels of unsustainable resource consumption and waste production. In comparison with other cities, tourist cities have to face additional challenges related to waste prevention and management due to their geographical and climatic conditions, the seasonality of tourism flow and the specificity of tourism industry and of tourists as waste producers.
URBAN-WASTE will support policy makers in answering these challenges and in developing strategies that aim at reducing the amount of municipal waste production and at further support the re-use, recycle, collection and disposal of waste in tourist cities. While doing so, URBAN-WASTE will adopt and apply the urban metabolism approach to support the switch to a circular model where waste is considered as resource and reintegrated in the urban flow. URBAN-WASTE will perform an analysis leading to a state of art of urban metabolism in 11 pilot urban areas.
