ATHENS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Greek city of Halandri, in the north-eastern part of Attica, is setting the bar for the rest of Greece in the green waste management by introducing a pioneering program to turn kitchen waste into energy.
Local authority, in collaboration with the National Technical University of Athens, joined the Waste4Think pilot project in 2016, which is implemented within the European framework of HORIZON 2020.
The program aimed to examine different cases of utilization and management of household waste in four European cities focusing on citizen participation to build more sustainable, eco-friendly cities.
"Three years after the implementation of the pilot project, we succeed in producing eight different kinds of fuels from kitchen waste. It indicates that our garbage should not be buried but can be used to produce energy. It is a hidden treasure we need to uncover," Mayor of Halandri Simos Roussos told Xinhua.
The procedure involves the collection of food waste and drying and shredding to generate a biomass product, which was called FORBI (food residue biomass). This odorless biomass can be stored for long periods and can be exploited to produce energy, fuels, and other useful products.
So far, pellets for heating, bioethanol, compost, and biogas have already been produced for the circulation of one of the waste trucks.
The concept which converts the origin of the problem into solution also drew attention from Halandri's Chinese sister city of Harbin, in the Northeast.
A delegation from Harbin visited the facilities to explore opportunities of cooperation in the field of environmental protection, by having had hands-on experience with the waste practices.
"It's a project based on the concept of a green city. We believe that the prospects of this technology are also very positive. The two cities can strengthen cooperation in waste management, especially in food waste," Peng Xu, an official with Harbin Environmental Protection Department, told Xinhua.
