- Hernani has become the first municipality in the Basque Country to obtain the certification of Towns and Cities Trash Zero. Created by Zero Waste Europe and led by the subsidiary of this NGO Mission Zero Academy (MiZA), the objective of the Zero Waste Cities and Towns certification is to promote between the cities and peoples of Europe the transition to the Zero Waste model and the implementation of the circular economy. Mission Zero Academy values each municipality that gets the document with a note from one to five stars and grants Hernani a 3-star accreditation.
The population of Hernani (21,000 inhabitants) has come a long way in waste management since the implementation of door-to-door collection in 2010. And now the NGO Zero Waste Europe has made public recognition with the Zero Waste Cities and Towns certification.
The international association Amigos de la Tierra, which has been promoting initiatives and actions aimed at zero garbage and auditing the certification, has highlighted that the low generation of refusals per inhabitant in Hernani, in 2020, is one of the most outstanding information it has received. The Autonomous Community of the Basque Country collects an average of 251.81 kg per inhabitant per year.
In addition to what is essentially the result of door-to-door collection, the Hernani City Hall has implemented over these years a series of measures that the certificate has taken into account: tupper-ware distributed among the population to reduce the use of plastics in fish and butcher shops, the great steps taken in car and neighborhood composting, the packaged food distribution system to take advantage of surpluses. If one of these steps is worth noting, a quarter of Hernani families recycle all their organic waste into individual or collective composting plants.
The mayor of Hernani, Xabier Lertxundi Asteasuinzarra, stressed that "this new certification system values the efforts of the Corporation, companies and local companies and citizens, after so many years of commitment to minimizing waste generation. Being able to play in the same league of northern European municipalities is a real satisfaction.”
As far as the Basque Country is concerned, following the news of the certification by the City of Herni, it has been known that the municipalities of Usurbil and Astigarraga have been incorporated into the certification system. Among the municipalities classified as Trash Cero, referred to by Mayor Lertxundi, is mythical the Italian Capannori, a reference between the Italian towns and cities that work at the Puerta a Puerta. Bled, Gorje, Vrhnika, Logdragome and Borvnica are certified in Slovenia. In Spain, El Boalo-Cerceda-Mataelpino (Madrid) and Torrelles de Llobregat (Catalonia).
Joan Marc Simon, director and founder of the NGO Zero Waste Europe said: “I congratulate the Hernani City Hall for being the first to achieve it in the Basque Country. We hope it will increase the interest in doing things right, because this only brings benefits to administrations, citizens and businesses that want to reduce the carbon footprint by advancing the zero trash model."