At present, European linear production, consumption and disposal patterns seem to support the myth that we live in a world with infinite resources. We are now aware that we are living on an ecological deficit with the rest of the world, importing almost 4 times more materials than we have exported. As the European Sustainable Development Strategy points out, a change in paradigm is necessary. The change needs to go beyond the current goal of EU waste policy of becoming a Recycling Society; it needs to embrace the reduction of material and energy use in order to turn it into a Zero Waste Society. One of the main focus areas of the "Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials Challenge" in Horizon 2020 is waste. There is a Europe wide plea that the waste generated in one industry becomes a secondary raw material for another industry. This transition will generate growth and jobs, while contributing to environmental protection and reducing Europe's dependency on raw material imports. As educators, we believe that the younger generation need to be fully embracing this concept in order to preserve our raw materials and - ultimately - our planet. Our objective is to develop materials for use in primary, secondary and upper secondary schools following extensive and detailed teacher training. The teaching materials will be a valuable resource to aid schools around Europe to learn to reuse, repurpose, reduce and recycle waste items where possible and sell them on in the marketplace. This will require entrepreneurship skills, marketing skills, repairing and manufacturing basic skills. The materials will be supported by a series of short films created for and designed by experts, teachers and the wider community. These films will be used as part of the resources developed during the life of this project. Materials prepared as part of this exciting project will be available throughout to widen participation in all regions. The project needs to work within different countries in order to find a cross reference and collective European approach. We are all both victims and perpetrators of the mounting waste problem we have in Europe. We seek, thorugh this project, to reframe our attitudes to waste products, by looking at where we can reuse items, repair them or redesign them and make something else.
Repurposing materials is an aim for many organisations globally and the projects aim was to share ideas across countries to keep the message current. Each partner focussed on using traditional methods when working with fabrics and discarded items. For each partner it enabled learners from other countries to learn new skills and traditions from other parts of the world while gaining new understanding and knowledge of how to use recycle-able objects. Each country focused on the urgent need for little to no waste products which enabled the students to recognise this as a global issue as well as understanding that working across countries will bring about better results and have a positive impact for all of us. A further aim was to inspire and motivate young people to upskill their community and to bring these issues to a wider audience. Sadly as a result of the pandemic this aim could not be truly realised. Additionally the project hoped to involve local markets or businesses and for the young people to create new products out of recyclable goods to sell locally. The result was to encourage entrepreneurial and employability skills relevant to the the country the young person was from. Unfortunately the pandemic made this impossible.
The project was designed to focus on changing the attitudes of young people towards disposable products and how to use them in alternative and useful ways. The project intended to host workshops involving the whole community and embracing intergenerational activities, however due to the global pandemic, many of the workshops could not take place. Nevertheless, meetings still took place online and whereas social inclusion was made difficult when face to face meet ups weren't possible, activities did take place in the form of online meetings. This medium did provide a much needed focus for disaffected students during the global lock down and, due to the nature of the project, using disposable goods and repurposing them were activities that students could successfully complete at home. The confidence of the students when in the security of their own home was an unexpected success of this project however technical difficulties did hinder successful collaborations.