HCWP Partners come together for final meeting

The Highland Community Waste Partnership (HCWP) Partners came together in Inverness on Wednesday, 12 March for our final in-person meet-up before the project finishes up at the end of the month.

Over the past three years we’ve gotten to know each others’ organisations -and each other- navigating our differences, learning to work together, building relationships and sharing ideas, in order to bring a raft of waste-reduction activities to communities across the Highlands.

This includes 729 events and workshops delivered to 12,454 people, providing opportunities for them to try new things and learn new skills for reducing waste and moving away from our disposable culture; As well as a range of local projects looking to change the options that are available for how we buy, use and dispose of all our ‘stuff’ -like sharing libraries, repair cafes, and local recycling solutions for food and packaging.

With two weeks to go, we used yesterday’s session to look back and reflect on our journey over the past three years and what we’ve learned, both in terms of building an effective partnership and, through that, achieving a wider reach and impact than would have otherwise been possible.

We also looked to the future, sharing our plans, hopes and concerns for the future of this work post-HCWP and were joined by representatives from the Highland Council Waste and Climate Change & Energy teams, as well as the Highlands and Islands Climate Hub.

Partnership Coordinator Georgina Massouraki said: “It is surreal to be coming to the end of this project. Three years seems like such a long time, but it’s gone by in a flash!

“it’s definitely been a journey and I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved, both as a team, working together to create change; and in our communities, finding local, grassroots solutions to global problems and showing that a different way, for both people and planet, truly is possible.”

Anyone interested in learning more about our work, both in terms of the partnership and what we’ve delivered across our three key topics – food waste & composting, share & repair, and single-use items & packaging – can come along to our webinar series next week.

To learn more and sign up, visit our events page.