HOOP D6.4 Outcome reports of the codesigned Citizen Science Interventions
Creators: name: Escarrabill, Mar
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: Approximately 88 million tonnes (173 kg per person) of food is wasted every year in the 28 EU Member States along the entire food value chain [1]. In parallel, EUROSTAT indicates that majority of municipal waste generated in Europe is still disposed of through landfilling (24%) or incineration (27%). This alarming statistic highlights the urgent need for action. In response to this pressing issue, the HOOP project is actively supporting 8 European Lighthouse Cities and Regions (LHs) to implement circular bioeconomy solutions to produce innovative and sustainable bio-based products from urban biowaste and wastewater. One crucial aspect of this endeavour is the creation of Biowaste Clubs (BC), which serve as collaborative spaces where stakeholders regularly exchange ideas and foster a shared vision for enhancing circularity within their cities.
To facilitate these exchanges, Science for Change (SfC) implemented between 2022 and 2023 a Citizen Science (CS) program utilizing the gamified App HOOP Trainers, adapted to 4 HOOP Lighthouses (LHs) context and needs: Lazio Region (Italy), Münster (Germany), Murcia (Spain) and Western Macedonia region (Greece). The program's objective was to collaboratively identify and advance more efficient sorting, collection, and recycling systems, with a particular emphasis on the Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW), while also actively engaging and raising awareness among citizens in HOOP LHs. The data collected through the HOOP Trainers App by 1296 users played a significant role in discussions within the Biowaste Clubs Meetings (BCM), in which 164 citizens participated, contributing to the formulation of the co-created recommendations that are shown below.
In terms of gender distribution, on average, nearly 61% of App users were female, a 30% were male, a 5% were non-binary and a 4% preferred not to provide their gender. The largest age group of users was 20-39 years. By analyzing users' decisions during HOOP Trainers missions, a deeper understanding of citizens' perspectives on biowaste separation, acceptance of products derived from biowaste, and their proposals for building a greener and more circular region has been attained. Students were specially engaged to participate in the BCMs to analyze the HOOP Trainers outcomes and co-create improvement proposals. The recommendations co-produced can be grouped in three areas: waste separation and recycling strategies, promotion of sustainable practices and circularity and reuse actions.
This document summarizes the methods to implement the 4 HOOP CS interventions, highlights the local outcomes obtained in Lazio Regio, Münster, Murcia and Western Macedonia region through the HOOP Trainers App, and outlines the local recommendations for optimising the separate collection of OFMSW obtained in the BCMs by collaboratively analyzing the HOOP Trainers outcomes. Additionally, explains the next steps of the T6.3. Citizen Science for optimising the separate collection of OFMSW in the LHs: to ensure that the effectiveness of the App is replicated, adjustments have been implemented to adapt it to the local context of Greater Porto area (Portugal) and Kuopio (Finland) needs. Both cities are evaluating how to use the App, they will gather data until December 2023 and a summarized report with the results will be provided to them if they collect a minimum amount of data. In parallel, SfC will share the learning of the CS interventions with the HOOP Network of Cities and Regions in specific HOOP Lunch Talks, during the National Replication Workshops and specific conferences.