The Autonomous Composting Units for Urban Areas (ACUA) programme has proposed that automatic composting machines be installed in Limassol for the discreet collection and processing of organic waste.

The Limassol Municipality is participating in ACUA with the cooperation of the Municipalities of Heraclion and Rhodes, as well as the Cyprus University of Technology.

According to a Limassol Municipality press release, the funding of the programme has been secured in the framework of INTERREG V-A Greece-Cyprus 2014-2020 and its aim is the development within the urban network of a system for the collection of produced organic waste (food and plant) and their processing (partially or fully) at the same place, without causing any disturbance.

The Municipality notes that all member states are obliged by the year 2020 to have set up a separate collection system, for at least 10% of produced organic waste, and that strengthening the sorting of urban solid waste at the source is a must.

In order to achieve this percentage, mainly in urban municipalities, ACUA proposes the installation of automatic composting machines, which will be autonomous, closed composting units, with no odour or leaking, operating with minimum human intervention, as they have their own monitoring software, and can be placed anywhere.

The goals of the programme include the reduction of organic waste ending up in bins, protecting the environment, and creating incentives for the citizens to develop a sorting at the source programme. Furthermore, resources will be saved by eliminating the use of rubbish trucks and waste management.

** The report is in the context of the project Rethink: Reduce- Reuse – Recycle which is funded by the EU programme LIFE+ (project code: LIFE13 INF/CY/000910) of the EU. Coordinating Beneficiary: CyBC. Partners: Green Dot Cyprus, Department of Environment, Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, CNA, Fost Plus Belgium **