Challenge description

Belgrade is a very vulnerable city, it needs protection and strength. Mobilization for environmental activities is crucial for preserving and improving the environmental quality of Belgrade and Serbia, i.e. for public health.

The solution to the problem of waste involves the coordination of multiple segments: 1) Culture, Education, and Microeconomics; 2) Infrastructure and Technology; 3) Policy, Institutions, and Macroeconomics; 4) Integrated Solid Waste Management Systems.

Therefore, the development of municipal infrastructure – installation of “multi-colored containers”, an increase in the number of recycling sites, etc. – is a must. But this will not solve the problem without significant awareness-raising, citizen mobilization and developing sustainable habits – sorting recyclable waste, disposing of waste in designated places, not leaving waste in nature, and more. MOBILIZATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS is a key prerequisite for successful recycling in Serbia, environmental protection and improvement. It is important to familiarize yourself with the sorting, types, and stream of waste.

Although citizens are given more opportunities now to sort their waste, to use recyclable waste containers, these activities are still not widespread, up to the fact that 35% of municipal waste consists of cigarette buds.

Challenge vision

During the mobilization, education and raising awareness, we need to perceive all the factors in the waste lifecycle, from citizens, through producers, to decision-makers.

The solution should offer concrete and achievable ideas – with a focus on raising environmental awareness of the selected factors. (In order for the solution to be applicable, local reality, potentials and limitations should be considered).

The solution may be based on the fact that the lack of eco-awareness is mostly expressed through package waste and food waste.

The decision on whether to mobilize around a particular activity, citizens largely make depending on the framework of information they have access to, and these are often conflicting. Therefore, the solution may be concerned with collecting and/or providing information.

The solution can be about linking citizens to sites for collecting recyclable materials – by connecting the broken chain.

Teams can make the following questions when solving:

• How to make a person start sorting waste when they have been disposing of all the waste in the same container or in nature for dozens of years?
• How to promote recycling in Serbia so that people would develop the habit of sorting their waste?
• How to reduce dumping waste in nature or illegal dumps?
• How to move the sorting process from landfills to an earlier stage in the process?

Web platforms and applications that integrate citizens into waste management – through crowdsourcing, decision making, developing initiatives and measuring effects and activities, gathering information, raising awareness, putting pressure on the decision-makers – provide valuable research opportunities.