Alarmed by reports of the European Environment Agency's 'State of the Environment report, which warned that Europe faced environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency, and the World Bank's announcement that global waste production was predicted to rise by 70% by 2050, a group of young people addressed their friends, classmates, and peers trying to map their awareness about issues related to waste production, waste management, ecological footprint, and sustainable consumption. Using their Instagram profiles, they launched a series of polls addressing young people between 16-30 years of age. The poll's results alarmed them even more: most respondents knew what ecological footprint was and had a general overview of how to reduce it, yet more than 65% did not practice any habit or action to do so on purpose. The majority also considered increasing waste production to be problematic. Yet, more than 85% could not describe how waste production threatened their region or local environment. 70% of respondents said they were willing to recycle and reuse materials. Yet, less than 25% practiced any such action. 60% of respondents were motivated to participate in eco-actions, yet only 35% could name more than two such activities in their region in the past year. The group of young people also noticed a lack of opportunities to further educate themselves on these matters and a lack of practical actions and initiatives to where they could contribute. There were no regular courses or organized free-time activities focused on decreasing individual consumption, reducing waste production, or reusing waste materials. They also saw a need for more appropriate facilities to recycle in their surroundings and felt frustrated about this activity's effectiveness, particularly when they saw a lack of interest in the level of cities. Motivated by these reports and their poll results, the group of young people decided to take action. With the Waste HERO project, they encouraged pro-environmental and sustainable lifestyle behaviors in 42 young Europeans and their peers while developing their environmental competencies. The mobility allowed participants to share practices and simple habits that helped minimize their ecological footprint and experience simple eco-actions easily transferable to their communities. The objectives of the project were: • Raise awareness of participants and their peers about the urgency of reducing the ecological footprint and the escalating importance of environmental protection, • Increase awareness of participants about the dangers of waste production, providing them with the opportunity to exchange information about the most relevant issues present in their communities, • Share among participants ideas and suggestions on how to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle and minimize their ecological footprint /advice for waste recycling, waste upcycling, reducing individual consumption, and saving energy, • Support participants with ideas and suggestions on how to encourage their peers to reduce waste production and practice recycling, • Foster a sense of initiative among young people from participants' communities, showing their action matter and even simple eco-action can cause a significant impact. The project was linked with Erasmus+ priorities and aimed to increase the sense of initiative, and self-esteem, improve foreign language competencies, enhance intercultural awareness, and increase active participation in society among young people.