Portuguese LIPOR manages waste flows, encourages citizens’ participation, and contributes to a better waste recycling hierarchy. With a new digital platform, LIPOR has advanced it’s work and now lessens the waste annually.

LIPOR’s Strategic Plan focuses on the recovery of materials by selective collection, the reduction of biodegradable urban waste landfill disposal, and the preparation of materials for reuse and recycling. To achieve these three objectives, LIPOR created a digital platform: the Waste management Data centre, which optimises the monitoring of waste flows and the recovery of materials.

Digitalised monitoring
The platform is used to monitor waste selective collection projects. It gives accurate data on the levels of participation and the quantities delivered per customer, instead of only showing the overall results by zone. The project has been developed in partnership with the eight municipalities that are part of the organisation and the Portuguese University TecMinho.

Being aware of the responsibility in promoting a circular economy, the LIPOR research and development of new products follow a process, which includes sustainable tools, such as Ecodesign. The organisation focuses on developing new circular and sustainable products in three priority areas:

• recovering slag from the energy recovery plant
• developing new products for agriculture
• increasing the purity level of materials.

The waste management development is ongoing. Besides the three areas mention above, LIPOR intends to further digitalise the operations, to create even more knowledge and value.

LIPOR is the inter-municipal waste management service of Porto in Portugal). It was founded in 1982 as Municipality Association and manages, recovers, and treats the municipal waste produced in eight municipalities of the Greater Porto Area: Espinho, Gondomar, Maia, Matosinhos, Porto, Póvoa de Varzim, Valongo, and Vila do Conde. Every year, LIPOR treats around 500,000 tons of municipal waste, produced by about 1 million inhabitants.

Sources/links
https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/en/commitments/lipor-committed-transition-waste-resource-management https://www.lipor.pt/en/

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