The Spanish province of Pontevedra, which includes 61 northern municipalities, had for a long time extremely low waste management results with only 9% of its waste being separately collected, leaving the remaining 91% to be transported more than 100 kilometres away to be either burned or landfilled.

To shift from this unsustainable, centralised and expensive waste management system, and to comply with the EU recycling obligations, the province launched a project named “Revitaliza” which built a decentralised, community-led composting system for biowaste relying on 3 key factors:

• A suitable location for the composting process to be conducted at, which has been adapted to the area’s specific needs and context
• The design and implementation of an effective monitoring system to ensure the success of the process, by identifying and solving issues that arise throughout the implementation phase
• A strong communication plan

In 2019, after only 3 years, the Province achieved ambitious results:

• More than 2,000 tonnes of biowaste were locally composted
• The project rolled-out in more than two-thirds of the province’s municipalities