00:07Small islands like Tilos here in Greece all face the same problem. Rubbish. Shipping it
00:14somewhere else is just too expensive. So most such islands do what Tilos used to do. Bury
00:20everything in a landfill. Out of sight, out of mind. But few years ago Tilos decided to stop
00:27doing that. Today this is officially the first zero waste island on the planet.
00:37Tilos, an idyllic island in the southeast of the Greek archipelago, draws visitors who value its
00:43quiet coastlines. Like Mavis Williams, who bought a house here seven years ago. But then she was told
00:51something unexpected. There is no more taking rubbish out to street bins. From now on someone
00:57would come to collect it at her door. I remember thinking, goodness, is this really going to work?
01:03Because, you know, we have a village which has got little narrow streets. How are they going to get
01:07up and collect all this waste? Before we had these big huge bins and they were overflowing. People
01:13would leave things beside it. Every resident received special bags to sort recyclables and
01:19organic waste at home for the collection teams to pick up. They're so efficient at collecting
01:25everything. You don't feel that you've got waste hanging around at all. Every waste bag and bin in
01:31Tilos carries an individual QR code. When collectors scan it, they log the weight of each bag on the spot.
01:38The data helps managers run the system more efficiently, flag problems early and gives residents a
01:45way to track their own recycling through a mobile app. In Livadia, the island's main village, small electric
01:53vehicles handle collections from the residents, as well as hotels, restaurants and other businesses along the seafront.
02:26Tilos used to send 87 percent of its waste to
02:30landfill. That figure is now zero. The island has no landfill at all. The site that was once a large
02:38rubbish heap, with plastic blowing onto nearby beaches, is now the center of circular innovation,
02:44where all the island's waste is sorted and processed.
02:48At this point, we're standing up to the valley of Stilu, which has closed, there's no longer
02:56choice, and it has a new system. It's a new system. It's a new system. It's a new system. It's
03:03a
03:03mountain that makes a lot of waste, but it won't be anything. It's a 100 percent of waste. It's
03:10a lot of waste. It's a lot of waste. It's a lot of waste. It's a lot of waste. It's
03:18a lot of waste.
03:26The waste arriving from across the island is sorted by hand into 15 categories, plastics, glass,
03:33aluminum, batteries, textiles, and more. It's then compressed and shipped to the mainland. Not as rubbish,
03:39but as valuable raw material for recycling.
03:49It's the most important reason to succeed in such a program,
03:56to support the citizens and to be able to separate from before the materials.
04:03Because when the materials are not separate, it's very, very difficult for our work here.
04:11The small fraction that cannot be recycled is converted into alternative fuel.
04:18Food scraps and other organic waste are composted into fertilizer.
04:26Here we have the final product from the composting of the organic waste.
04:31These are very helpful for the soil, as they have
04:36plants that can help the development of the plants and the plants of the tree.
04:42They're giving it to the residents.
04:48From a landfill to a model of circularity, a transformation recognized by zero waste.
04:53cities, a European certification standard. It's not the first time Tilos has led the way.
04:58The island switched to renewable electricity years ago.
05:01That instinct or environmental thinking helped when Polygrim, a Greek waste management company,
05:07brought its zero waste concept to the island, with backing from the region of South Aegean.
05:14A door-to-door education campaign brought residents on board, one household at a time.
05:19Mayor Maria Kamma explains.
05:22We brought the lights together, so we handed it to the doctors.
05:27To the students.
05:29The students brought the elders to their parents.
05:33Across the way and from there, it began to deal with the whole thing.
05:38Everything began to deal with all this.
05:49You won't go anywhere else, we will take them from your home, so this will help you.
06:19And it's aesthetically pleasing, it's just much nicer to look at rather than overflowing dirty bins. And there's no smell
06:27either.
06:28The island is not just recycling its waste, it's producing far less of it.
06:34Residents of Tilos now throw away 43% less than before the project began.
06:39Knowing that everything is processed by hand, and being able to track their own figures alongside their neighbours, has pushed
06:48people to reduce, reuse and recycle rather than simply dispose.
06:54Statsis Kontos is the Secretary General, the Senior Administrative Manager of the Municipality of Tilos.
07:01Statsis Kontos
07:02We have come up with a logic that it's not a waste, it's materials, all have a second life,
07:09and we try to find out what others think are the second life.
07:15The best use of them.
07:17It was a cycle, it was a composition, it was a composition, we think it's something that can be done
07:22everywhere.
07:23It's the issue of education, the issue of the new generation, and it's the issue of addressing things.
07:31The Just Go Zero Tilos project is ready to grow.
07:36Regional authorities are planning to extend the model so that more small islands across Greece stop burying their waste and
07:43start dealing with it properly.
07:44Music
07:48Music
07:59Statsis
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