Komunalno podjetje Vrhnika (Vrhnika Municipal Services Co.)

Proposer: Group of citizens of Vrhnika - Miša Strban, Simona Jelovšek and Darijan Kocijančič

What do lifelong learning and a public waste management service have in common? At first the question might surprise us, but on reflection we realise that education for waste management is also education for responsibility towards the environment, for development based on renewable energy sources, on the collection and processing of raw materials and so forth. At Komunalno podjetje (KP) Vrhnika they are well aware of all this, and they are also aware that a new attitude to raw materials demands a new awareness and the learning of new patterns of behaviour! The awareness that success with new forms of waste management demands more than just providing bins for separate collection, led them to plan out an educational, informational and promotional programme to inform the residents of Vrhnika and Borovnica, and through individual educational components they are present throughout Slovenia. The programmes of awareness-raising, encouraging and informing citizens are aimed at all people, and they are planned promotionally and pedagogically in such a way that they address each target group separately. Each month households receive, along with their bill, a nicely designed bulletin on collection campaigns, the dates for removal of specific types of waste, ecology islands and the labelling of bins, etc., and also occasionally the publication Ogrizek (Little Scrap), where alongside high-quality information there is also a range of articles dealing with environmental education and education for appropriate handling of individual types of waste (what does not belong in the ecology island or in an individual bin, where waste goes, what happens with unusable waste and with hazardous waste, and so forth). New features in the area of separate waste collection are also always presented in the local paper Naš časopis (Our Newspaper). All the educational content is adapted at the Waste Management Centre for work with young people, both schoolchildren and preschoolers, with whom they cooperate regularly, and also with students. They try to attract their attention by organising guided tours, through high-quality teaching aids (folders, balloons for the youngest), through competitions (drawings on a specified subject), setting up information stands, designing high-quality promotional material (calendars, folders) and organising the collection of hazardous waste and other special actions to preserve a healthy, cleaner environment. Since a good reputation speaks for itself, they are hosting increasing numbers of school trips, and they are also being visited by experts and practitioners in the field of waste management from all over Slovenia and even from abroad. And most encouraging of all, perhaps, is the realisation that the deliberate 10-year education and promotion activities of KP Vrhnika have succeeded in breaking down the prejudices of local people associated with the collection and processing of waste.