1) Please introduce your organization and your region
The Municipality of Lousada locates in northern Portugal, in the periurban region of Porto. The Municipality encompasses urban and rural areas, and faces a great deal of human pressure, with a density of about 500 inhabitants per square kilometre, although being of medium size (48.000 inhabitants).
The ongoing degradation of land and natural areas led the city council to adopt a revolutionary sustainability agenda in 2015, and has rapidly achieved major transformative results, from which we highlight the social engagement in solving environmental issues.
2) What is the main challenge in your region related to waste management that you want to address through the OptiWaMag project?
Within the waste management topic we identify two main issues: biowaste and final solution for unsorted waste, which is the landfill.
With OptiWaMag we hope to have access to a collaborative network that can help us develop the most efficient ways to better address these issues, and our waste management policy in general.
3) What is your expectation for the output of the project?
We look forward to work with the Portuguese stakeholders and all the project partners in a collaborative and co-learning process, so that the proposed Action Plan for our region could be the best possible. This means we are expecting to develop clear policy guidelines, propose interventions, and share best practice in a useful and practical way. We are working with our relevant stakeholders so that our suggestions may result in actual take-up and buy-in from the sector.
