Smart Projects That Turn Waste Into Resources - Part 1.

I've seen a couple of projects lately that worth paying attention to. Our planet's resources are limited and if we don't act responsibly, the future generations will face huge difficulties. Resources are not endless, are going to end one day. Today I'm going to talk about a smart projects that are turning waste into resource from Venice, Italy.

Turn Waste Into Energy

Imagine a city where car and bicycle traffic is heavily restricted and/or non existent, especially in the old, historical part of the city. It's not because they are afraid of pollution and traffic, but because they don't really have streets, only canals.

Collecting waste is done differently than in other cities. Streets are narrow and many buildings have exits only to the canals, which means these are only accessible by boat. Imagine taking out the garbage on garbage day. There's no such thing in Venice for people with access only to the canals. But this is only for locals, so imagine 30 million tourists a year. How much garbage is produced by tourists? Combined with household garbage and what the stores, companies are creating daily, I'd say it's a lot.

How is waste collection done? Actually they have a very smart system implemented in 2016 and not only for the waste collection but also for waste management.

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This is the boat that is collecting the waste from 6am to 8.5am every day. They need to be organized and move fast in order to finish before gondoliers start their day, which is 10am if I'm not mistaken. Workers start collecting waste, load onto these metal containers, take them to the canal where the boat is waiting, then the metal container is loaded by a crane onto the boat. The boat has a big container that can collect a part of the waste. There are separate days for recyclable waste and household waste.

What is interesting is the cabin of the boat. You know there are a lot of bridges in Venice, built during times when the only vehicles circulating in the canals were gondolas, so these bridges are not high above the water. The boat's cabin therefor is adjustable, when it approaches a bridge that is lower than the top of the cabin, the "captain" lowers the cabin.

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In places where houses are exits only to the canals, the boat stops and the workers are going in to take the garbage manually and load it onto the boat. When the boat's container is full, it's taken to another, bigger boat that takes the garbage to the mainland, where it's processed.

Now you may be wondering what processed means. The garbage is wet when collected, so it has to be dried, then packed and sent to the energy plant and transformed into energy. The energy they got from garbage covers approximately 10% of Venice's illumination. Basically it's two birds with one stone as the garbage is not stored some place where can fill up, it's transformed and the energy is used for the city.

Naples Garbage Scandal

Some of you may say why I'm writing about this as this is a normal process. It certainly is but tit wasn't always like this. Do you remember the Naples garbage scandal from 2008? Let me tel you what happened in a few worlds.

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Naples is a city with a population of almost one million and almost 400,000 tourists are visiting annually. This is not a surprise as it's a historical city with a lot of wonderful buildings and artworks to see. Imagine the garbage not picked up for weeks, piling up on the side of every road because the garbage collecting companies are in the hands of the Camorra. This happened in 2008, Berlusconi was the prime minister, it was a compete disaster. Almost 10,000 tones of trash piled up and due to this mess, EU funds were frozen. EU said funds will be freed when actions will be taken, not plans made.

It is believed this garbage scandal contributed to Berlusconi's downfall. Imagine what damage this scandal has caused to Italy's economy. Tourists were disgusted and many have cancelled their tour as no one is eager to roam around the city on streets filled with tons of garbage. This was a tough lesson to authorities, they should have never given anyone a strong blackmailing tool like this to anyone.

Now let's go back to Venice. Garbage collection is done by the city, so no one can blackmail them with letting the garbage pile up in canals or on the streets. Plus they are turning it into energy, a win-win situation.

Plastic Free City

The Twin Bottles: Message in a Bottle

This statue is the artwork of two young artists, Helidon Xhixha and Giacomo Jack Braglia. It symbolizes a plastic free city, which Venice will become starting from 2021. There are regulations that are forcing merchants and companies to use biodegradable containers. I hope they can meet the deadline as waste is not dangerous only to humans, it's dangerous for birds as well. Seagulls are plenty in Venice and for them (and not only) digesting plastic can be fatal.

This is not the only plastic free project. I've seen mountain villages also adopting the plastic free policy, forbidding plastic as micro particles are brought by wind and stored in the snow or ice, which is also a danger to everyone.

Stay tuned for the next amazing project.