Coastal municipality launches pilot program for waste management

The Municipality of Pigadakia in the southern Athenian suburb of Voula is launching a pilot program for Greece’s first source-sorting waste management system.

Following an awareness raising campaign carried out over the last few weeks, the program starts on Monday with the municipal authority distributing color-coded bags.

Households will be given an orange bags for plastics, tins and other recyclables, and a blue bag for paper only.

These will be collected between Tuesday night and 4 a.m. on Wednesday every week. A paper bag will be provided for organic matter than cannot be used for composting, while composting bags will also be distributed for that purpose.

If the program is seen to work, the municipality also plans to introduce a bonus system whereby residents committed to recycling will be granted a discount on their municipal tax bill.