The relevance of waste prevention increased throughout the last years. Exemplary on plastic waste, the European Environment Agency's Progress Report on Waste Prevention from 2020 has shown that the required efforts are particularly successful if they start with the most concrete problems and create a framework, in which all relevant actors are involved in solving the problem.
The necessity of an action- and solution perspective is also emphasised within the first German Waste Prevention Programme: Among the actors in practice, there was a high level of agreement with the approaches mentioned there. But at the same time, the lack of practical relevance has been highlighted. The current report of the German Advisory Council on the Environment (Sachversändigenrat für Umweltfragen) is also pointing out this issue by calling for more concrete and binding approaches.
With regard to waste avoidance, there is no lack of ideas and suggestions, but rather of concrete implementations. Therefore, the project participants are working on
- the elaboration of existing approaches and obstacles towards waste prevention based on a situation analysis on the subjects textiles, disposables, event management, and education and intercultural communication,
- the development of concrete approaches and instruments through innovative discussion and participations for mats, which are jointly supported and implemented by the relevant stakeholder, and
- a strong stakeholder involvement within webinars and workshops in order to create a robust agreement on common responsibility.