From Thursday, January 25 to Saturday, January 27, Zero Waste Kiel e.V. hosted the on-site part of the Zero Waste Ambassador training in Kiel as part of a CBSS (Council of Baltic See States)-funded project in partnership with the Let’s Do It Foundation and Zero Waste Poland.
Thursday’s program included site visits: a waste collection and sorting site from ABK, where Mr. Abromeit Burkhard presented how they methodically analyzed Kiel’s residual waste; lunch at Cocina, a coworking kitchen supporting 15 projects directed by ‚Marcel‘; a visit to the Echt gut reuse center; and finally, a presentation of Kiel’s ZW city project by Ms. Selina Kahl of the Department of Environmental Protection.
On Friday, the participants from various German region, Estonia and Latvia had the opportunity to reflect on and deepen their knowledge of zero waste strategies. They also explored the challenges of creating waste management systems that take account of local contexts, and discovered the importance of cooperation between waste management and waste prevention actors, such as repair and reuse centers. The training focused on communication strategies, addressing misconceptions related to waste and waste management, as well as taking into account the basic needs of interlocutors, relatedness, expertise and autonomy, when submiting ideas for strategic improvements.
Finally, we concluded the on-site training on Saturday with a role-play simulating real situations a „Zero Waste Ambassador“ might face when engaging with municipality authorities and waste management companies.
The entire training course was based on long-term learning methods and has proved its worth at previous events in Slovenia and Brussels.
Zero Waste Kiel e.V. acted as host and logistical organizer. This event was a first for our trainers, Marie and Marc Delaperrière, supported by experienced trainer Kadi Kenk from Tallinn.
As a Zero Waste association, the theme of education is for us at the forefront. We sincerely thank the Let’s Do It Foundation for providing us with these new pedagogical techniques and for creating this remarkable training course! It encourages us to continue along this path!