EU waste laws agreed upon in December 2017 mandated member states to recycle 60% of their municipal waste. At the same time, the collection and recycling rate in the city of Barcelona was only 36%. The city has particularly identified the behaviour of consumers and the perception of recycling as a problem. Recycling had stagnated, and the city noted difficulty in collaborating with business stakeholders and in incentivising people to commit to the recycling effort.

The city of Barcelona is committed to further reducing the generation of municipal waste. The city’s Zero Waste Strategy encompasses a multitude of policy interventions by the municipality to support households and organisations contributing towards this goal.

In order to drive action for a zero waste city, Barcelona has set strategic targets:

• To reduce waste generation to less than 1,2 kg per inhabitant per day;

• To reach recycling levels of 60% of municipal waste; and

• To reduce the polluted fraction of organic waste to below 8%.

The municipality supports citizens, organisations and businesses to contribute to achieving these ambitions by means of financial stimuli. For citizens, for example, the municipality has reformed waste taxation so as to encourage source separation and is developing infrastructure for community composting for biowaste from households. In addition to strategic ambitions and financial support, the municipality promotes green and circular behavious amongst citizens and businesses by a multitute of measures, such as environmental education and information at Green Points in the city, distributing maps with sustainable shops and restaurants, and seminars for more sustainable offices.

At the core of Barcelona's strategy is the attempt to facilitate recycling through door-to-door collection of recyclable waste at set times. This scheme has already been tried in other European cities such as Milan, and has been successful in increasing recycling rates there. A number of smaller initiatives support this effort by raising awareness for recycling and encouraging the prevention of waste, such as repair workshops and an attempt to reduce the waste from take-away containers. Furthermore, the city wants to use fiscal incentives and workshop-based training campaigns to promote waste prevention among its partners.