What do youngsters think about waste issues? To find out, children and youth were invited to submit creative artworks that highlight, raise awareness or offer ideas for solutions around waste management, sorting and recycling.
4 municipalities in 3 countries participated with children aged 6-11 sending drawings/creative works and youth aged 12-19 videos. The works received showed that youngsters have a good understanding of the problems mismanagement of waste can pose and are aware of its consequences on the environment and life. What’s more, they understand the types of actions and initiatives needed for improved waste management practices.
Participants demonstrated through their work their wishes for preserving the environment and living in clean cities while offering ideas on how to solve waste issues and achieve more environmentally aware lifestyles.
The competitions ran over different rounds, starting locally within schools and in each municipality. In the drawing competition, children’s works went through 3 rounds: best in class, best in year or best in school and best among schools participating within the municipality. The first round of the video competition was open for all, with the best ones within the municipality being chosen by a panel of judges formed by municipality officials.
The ‘Let’s keep our City clean!’ competition has been an initiative by the Circular Based Waste Management project which works towards implementing circular based waste management practices. The project if founded on the principles of a circular economy, where waste is considered a valuable resource. It is based on expanding the life cycle of products through reuse, recycling, repair and renovation so that the materials products are made of, play a part in the economy for as long as possible.
In this respect, one of the project’s targets is to raise awareness and encourage citizens, youth and children of the municipalities involved to pay attention to waste management, sorting and recycling practices. The competition aims to encourage children and youth to think about such issues in their local cities.
The top works in both competitions chosen made it to the final round involving all 4 municipalities: Mažeikiai and Plungė from Lithuania, Paide from Estonia and Sumy from Ukraine. In this round the public were invited to vote for their favourites with the ultimate goal to have one winner from each municipality. The origins of the works and names of the young artists were not revealed were possible and the public were encouraged to vote for as many works as they like.
Winners for each round were awarded prizes at ceremonies held locally in Mažeikiai, Paide and Sumy with project partners joining remotely on Zoom. One additional grand prize was awarded by the expert partner, Green Business Norway.
The final winner, Markus Udam, from Paide, Estonia was chosen by a panel of professionals in waste management put together by the expert partner. The grand prize consists of an educational trip to Norway (Covid-19 circumstances permitting) packed with learning activities on best practices in waste management. The winner will be allowed to bring two friends and they will all be expected to document their trip on social media to share their experiences. They will also be expected to present a summary of their trip and lessons learned when they return home.
The final winners for the drawing competition are:
The final winners for the video competition are:
From Sumy Ukraine: Danylo Vorona (https://youtu.be/jipjHCYofT0)
From Paide, Estonia: Marie-Marleen Jaanof (https://youtu.be/7OUGAUHDfhY)
From Plungė, Lithuania:Ema Rėkašiūtė Šateikių (https://youtu.be/1w8VFX-VJdo)
From Mažeikiai, Lithuania: Monika Pinkauskaite (https://youtu.be/7zz6Os1ey_A)
The Expert prize winner is:
Markus Udam from Paide Estonia (https://youtu.be/MFeXnMX3OMc)
Works of the finalists that made it to the transnational round are available to view on the project’s Facebook page:
Videos Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/102082688636166/3980365825354382
Drawings Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=CircularBasedWasteManagement&set=a.137297178448050
