The third Interregional Event took place on April 24–26, 2024 in the City of Mechelen, Belgium. All partners from the CITISYSTEM (Interreg Europe 2023) project met to share good practices across the countries.
Link to the CITISYSTEM website.
Event opened with a speech from Alderman of Climate in City of Mechelen, Patrick Princen (2024) with inspiring quotes: “We must continue to invest in our cities” and “Role of local government: bringing people together and making things possible”.
The day continued with lectures about the composting practices in Mechelen presented by Vlaco Be and their practice of master composters: senior experts who are helping citizens to start the composting in the right way. It is organized such that there is one master composter for 2200 residents. The small cycle of the household composting supports the larger system of the recycling.
Mezzo Energy (2024) continued with presentation of the slow composting of the catering biowaste with the temperature of the human body as a business model. The food waste which is coming from catering and restaurant could be utilized for the energy production in the city as well as the compost production.
Local practices of the circular bioeconomy
The second day continued with visiting the 28 Rond center in Werheide, Mechelen – a cluster for the circular ventures and entrepreneurs for networking, new products and services creation for support of circular economy. Several start-ups have presented their innovative products for audience.
The afternoon continued with a circular economy event. Circular Flanders (2024) has presented their visions about supporting the transition to the circular economy in the region of Flanders. Vision had closing nutrient and carbon loops, using of bio-chemicals and transforming logistics and biohubs. The event followed by the fair of circular entrepreneurial innovations like 3D printing of recycled plastics, giving a second life to the used wooden cutting boards and growing mushrooms in coffee leftovers.
On the third day, the Climate Congress Mechelen focused on collaboration and coalition building, with sessions covering e.g., circularity, climate adaptation, and social transition, featuring the CITISYSTEM in the poster exhibition.
Furthermore, Closed food loops examples were presented. Regenerative farming, like Ferm in Mechelen, benefits both farmers and the environment by improving soil health, boosting carbon sequestration, and supporting biodiversity. Ferm grows fresh organic vegetables, herbs, and flowers, which are sold directly to local catering, at markets, and to self-pickers in the fields. They maintain healthy soil using compost and decomposed manure, wide crop rotation, and biodiversity to minimize diseases. Cover crops (green manures) are sown to protect the soil from erosion.
A regional food distribution platform, Foodsavers, that also provides social employment was presented. Foodsavers collects surplus food from supermarkets, auctions, and local traders, distributing this good-quality, in-date food to poverty organizations in Mechelen. The food is sorted in a cold room and prepared for delivery. Foodsavers makes about 50 deliveries weekly to various initiatives, which then distribute the food to their visitors or use it in meals. From 2020 to 2023, the number of food donors grew from 6 to 38, and the amount of food donated increased from 5 000 kg to 40 700 kg per month. In three years, they saved 1 200 tons of food from landfills, equivalent to 3.2 tons of CO2 emissions, and expanded their staff from 6 to 13. (Stad Mechelen 2024.)
Overall, the visit to the Mechelen was full of learning experiences for all the project partners and stakeholders.
Authors
Katerina Medkova works as an RDI Specialist at LAB University of Applied Sciences and is the CITISYSTEM Project Manager.
Alexandra Maksheeva works as an RDI Specialist at LAB University of Applied Sciences and is the CITISYSTEM project Communication Manager.
References
Circular Flanders. 2024. Presentation at the Interregional Meeting on April 24–26, 2024. Mechelen, Belgium.
Mezzo Energy. 2024. Presentation at the Interregional Meeting on April 24–26, 2024. Mechelen, Belgium
Princen, P. 2024. Opening Speech at the Interregional meeting on April 24–26, 2024. Mechelen, Belgium
Stad Mechelen. 2024. Foodsavers project. Cited 20 Nov 2024. Available at https://www.mechelen.be/foodsavers
Vlaco vzw, Belgium. 2024. Vlaco in English. Cited 26 Aug 2024. Available at https://vlaco.be/en
Links
Link 1. Interreg Europe. 2023. CITISYSTEM – Supporting cities in sustainable biobased systemic change. Cited 5 Jun 2024. Available at https://www.interregeurope.eu/citisystem
