RECYCLING CULTURE IS BROUGHT CLOSER TO 30,000 GALICIAN SENIORS

Xunta de Galicia and Ecoembes have jointly launched an original campaign entitled ‘Third in age, first in recycling’ aimed at promoting the culture of recycling, which has already benefited 30,000 Galician seniors. This program has the added objective of reaching more than 540 residences, day centers, residential homes and community housing in Galicia.

With ‘Third in age, first in recycling’, Xunta de Galicia and Ecoembes seek that the elderly become ambassadors of the circular economy through recycling, providing the centers with garbage cans and buckets to separate waste and carrying out various recreational activities.

To make this initiative possible, Ecoembes is providing participating centers with more than 2,600 recycling points, such as yellow bins and waste garbage cans for plastic containers, cans and briks, and blue bins for paper and cardboard, to ensure proper separation, as well as posters, vinyls and other elements to be placed in the different areas of the center, so that their involvement is as high as possible. In addition, various recreational and therapeutic activities, such as games and handicrafts, are being carried out to bring them closer to this habit.

With this project, both Xunta and Ecoembes want to bring recycling to more than 540 centers in Galicia. The ‘Third in age, first in recycling’ project also provides training to the staff of each center, including cleaning professionals, cooks, therapists and entertainers, management teams, key players in the day-to-day life of the elderly, who are provided with resources to develop activities related to recycling and environmental care.

On the other hand, Beatriz Aylagas, head of CSR at Ecoembes, emphasizes that “the recycling we want is inclusive and inclusive, where everyone fits, including the elderly, who are also an example for society as a whole in terms of responsible consumption, reuse and waste separation. This initiative recognizes this potential and highlights its value. It is also a recognition of them, because the future of the environment will undoubtedly involve the elderly in the cause”.

This initiative, which emerged at the end of 2017 as a result of a pilot project developed at TheCircularLab, Ecoembes’ innovation center on circular economy, is already present in 813 centers in Aragon, La Rioja, Cantabria, Extremadura, Asturias and Galicia and has already managed to involve more than 385,000 seniors.