Castelbuono is a Zero Waste town of 10.000 inhabitants in Sicily, Italy, which has managed to develop an
innovative system to marry sustainability, social work, and economics. The mayor decided to link the recovery of a traditional donkey-breed from Sicily – called Ragusa – with the challenges of the waste collection in narrow streets and the social work. Castelbuono mayor decided to use the donkeys to activate the door-to- door separate collection. On one hand it makes donkeys useful so that recovering this breed stops being a cost to become an asset, on the other hand it becomes a way to reintroduce socially excluded people (with mental or addiction problems) thanks to using contact with animals as a therapy (onotherapy) and finally it turns waste collection into a tourist attraction and an education tool. Main objectives are expected savings of
7.000 € per year, 47.000 Kwh, 12.600 kg of C02, balanced accounts in waste collection and treatment, less expenses in subsidies to socially excluded people and very high rates of integration to society, recovering an important part of local culture and creation of a tourist attraction at zero cost.
NEEDS ADDRESSED:
• no EE policy public sector strategic goals with defined targets at national level (Art. 3)
