Cities on both sides of the Mediterranean face important environmental challenges and increasing costs to collect and treat waste, including expensive investments in landfills or incinerators. The MED-InA project proposes to develop and roll out a “Circular Economy" public policy adapted to Mediterranean cities as an exemplary and participatory approach for waste reduction, reuse, and recycling. The methodology will be co-designed by the consortium partners, a well-balanced operational structure composed of three local communities (La Marsa-Tunisia, Irbid-Jordan, and Ribera-Spain), a public interest group (AVITEM-France), one private company (E3D-Environnement-France), and two academic institutions (the American University of Beirut and Jordan University of Science and Technology). This methodology will place the citizens at the heart of the process and will strongly value a “low tech-low cost" approach by promoting in the South and reintegrating in the North traditional practices that generate little quantity of waste. This work will be linked to concrete updates of municipal waste management plans and support to innovative circular economy businesses in order to act at a multi-level stage and create synergies.
The project is also expected to lead to three capacity-building plans and training programs for municipal staffs and elected members, 15 local awareness-raising campaigns on the Zero Waste approach, 3,000 households using new services and equipment for sorting at source, recycling, reusing and composting, 12 startups selected and supported to create businesses in the circular economy sector, and 2,400 low-cost equipment and services set up for sorting at source and implementing decentralized composting.
The MED-INA team launched the project in Marseille on November 13 and 14, 2019
In December 2021, after having received over two-hundred applications in all three pilot areas (Tunisia, Jordan & Spain), pitching events were held and 4 winners in each area were selected for their innovative ideas and approaches to tackling waste management. Aside from winning a prize to help develop their projects, they have also benefited from a 3-month incubation and support period, provided by the incubators in each country.
- Meet our incubators and winners
JORDAN
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| TTi Incubator is a non-profit Jordanian organization, founded in 2010 with the mission of spreading Entrepreneurship and Innovation culture among youth and women living in disadvantaged communities. Since 2010, more than 8500 direct beneficiaries have been served through +50 projects implemented all over Jordan, including awareness, training-camps, mentoring, consultation, matchmaking and early-stage incubation. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube
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| In Ivvest we use science and technology to develop income improvement, cost efficient and easy to operate indoor farming solutions. Our solutions include our special vertical farming system and the environment controlling and monitoring technology, which enable producing 15x times more than traditional farming and 7x times more than greenhouses. As a start-up we are always motivated by our passion to solve new challenges, develop new solutions and products and to keep on learning with vision to becoming key players in the Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry within the MENA region.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn
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| Gold Sands Treating municipal waste and livestock farm wastes that cause environmental problems in Jordan and turning them into an organic fertilizer called black gold globally rich in nutrients through certain worms in order to help farmers increase production and significantly reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and improve soil fertility.
Facebook, Instagram
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| Ghoorcom is a company specializing in agricultural technology focusing on solving problems and challenges related to the easy and secure marketing of agricultural products. The company is developing the supply chain in the agricultural sector by enabling farmers to market their products directly to local and international markets. Our vision is to enable sustainability in the agricultural sector and enhance transparency through the Ghoorcom platform that connects farmers and traders.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
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| Teenah is the First ethical merchandising business in the Middle East with a focus on the SDG 12: "responsible consumption and production". Teenah aim to help communities, companies & individuals to switch to eco-friendly alternatives instead of the plastic and harmful merchandise; promoting lifestyles in harmony with nature. All production is done by working with refugees & women in their host communities in Irbid and Azraq.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn
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TUNISIA
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| Lab'ess Incubator – which means « Everything is going well » in Tunisian – was created in 2012 just after the Tunisian revolution. It is an association under Tunisian law associated with PULSE, an international organization part of GROUPE SOS supporting impact entrepreneurship. Our mission is to support the associative movement of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and to support social entrepreneurship as a lever for inclusive and sustainable solidarity development. Our core business is to raise awareness, accompany and finance the actors of change while advocating to facilitate and improve the structuring of the SSE sector in Tunisia. Since 2012 we have worked with more than 80 social entrepreneurs and supported more than 2000 associations. Our incubation program for entrepreneurs lasts about 6 months and provides networking, coaching and loan financing.
Website, Facebook, LinkedIn
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| HORTIKOS is an Agri-tech
start-up that works to set up a network of hydroponic urban farms giving access
to healthy and pesticide-free agricultural products. HORTIKOS acts to deal with
environmental degradation and unhealthy food by granting a chain of production
and distribution limiting intermediaries, while ensuring democratization of
access to eco-responsible products. HORTIKOS's mission is to fight against
unemployment by paying for jobs through the vocational training of urban
farmers.
Facebook, Instagram
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| WARKA is a project working on the recovery and transformation of paper waste in order to create stationery and decoration products while raising awareness of paper waste.
Facebook, Instagram
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| INDINYA: Vitro collects, Victro transforms, Vitro builds.
Vitro is a new way of thinking about glass recycling. In a mini processing station, the glass collected and transformed into glass flour, thanks to our easy-to-install mini broyeur Vitro. Glass flour improves transport to be regenerated in glass, is much more efficient than sand in water filters of swimming pools or tanks and replaces aggregated in cement mortars or paints.
Our experience in the construction sector allows us to exploit this glass flour for the formulation of plasters and floors, making our homes , shops, etc. unique and ecological design and technology at the service of Vitro ecology.
Facebook, Instagram
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| Debrasy is a social and solidarity enterprise in the waste collection sector that supports the less fortunate to develop their income. It empowers independent waste collectors to reach their objectives. Its business model is based on revenue share, which will hopefully lead it to expand its operations and benefit the maximum possible of its target population.
Facebook
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SPAIN
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| IDEA is the Local Development Agency of the City of Alzira with over 25 years of experience supporting entrepreneurs in our community. Focused on the Entrepreneurship and Business Development Service, it pursues the fundamental objective of promoting entrepreneurship in the municipality while seeking a clean and sustainable municipality. As for the Entrepreneurship Service, IDEA guides new entrepreneurs on the necessary procedures to start a business, in addition to providing them with specific grants, in the last 5 years IDEA has supported 1,192 entrepreneurs. For this reason, focused on Eco Res, IDEA seeks to promote local entrepreneurship while encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship. Website
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| Quimsil is a business project that aims to manufacture silicone rubber with multiple uses for the creation of products in the industrial sector. Once the customer has used our silicones, the waste generated in its production process is removed and managed to obtain raw materials with which to manufacture new silicone. Quimsil's goal is to implement a circular economy model in the polymer sector by obtaining a valuable product from what is today considered as waste. Our aim is to join the new industrial revolution, an industry that is in favor of the environment and digitalization, without neglecting the commercial side of our business.
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| Miachėlla's project about giving a new life with textile art as an added value to any garment, with techniques such as upcycling, which is based on the creative reuse of waste materials such as hand-painting, patchwork, hand embroidery, Eco print textile design and salvaging vintage clothing. The essence of Miachėlla is to recover, reactivate, dignify and preserve existing materials through sustainable fashion, thus reducing the consumption of raw materials, giving them ecological value and promoting the circular economy. The purpose of the project is to create enough awareness and action for fashion and sustainability to go hand in hand. Be the change you want to see in the world! Instagram
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| Cerian Shower is an energy recuperator integrated in the shower tray that reuses this energy immediately to heat the water. It is born from the need to recover that energy in a simple way to the user. The passive shower eco-tray recovers more than 40% of the energy from the water that goes down the drain and by reducing the amount of hot water needed, it creates immediate energy as well as economic savings.
Website
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To learn more you can visit the project's website by clicking here.