The challenge
Tarragona City Council needed to define a new Local Waste Prevention Plan looking ahead to 2030, able to structure and strengthen municipal prevention policy in line with the European, Spanish and Catalan regulatory framework. The Plan had to start from a precise understanding of the municipality’s reality and translate prevention objectives into concrete, applicable actions.
The challenge was to act before materials became waste: understanding which flows had the greatest potential for reduction, which consumption habits and patterns could be changed, and which tools the Council could use to make those changes easier.
That’s why the diagnosis wasn’t limited to quantifying generation. It analysed waste flows, their composition, economic and environmental costs, citizens’ habits, and the potential for reuse and repair.
The goal was to move from “managing waste better” to acting on the causes that generate it.
Project development
The project was structured in four phases:
- Diagnosis of the system and waste flows. Analysis of how generation has evolved, the composition of waste and Tarragona’s waste profile, identifying the flows with the greatest prevention potential.
- Economic, environmental and citizen analysis. Assessment of the costs tied to waste management and of the carbon footprint, complemented by a survey of a representative sample of citizens to understand habits around consumption, reuse, repair and prevention.
- Defining the strategy and actions. Setting quantitative, qualitative and environmental objectives, and defining strategic lines and concrete actions across the main areas of prevention.
- Planning and monitoring. Scheduling actions through to 2030 and defining a system of indicators to measure their rollout and results, allowing measures to be adjusted over the life of the Plan.
Results
The project produced a Local Prevention Plan structured around 8 strategic lines, combining direct prevention actions with municipal instruments, communication and support measures:
- Communication and branding plan for the prevention plan.
- Preventing organic waste generation and food waste.
- Reducing lightweight packaging and single-use plastics.
- Minimising paper use.
- Reuse and preparation for reuse of bulky waste, textiles, and electrical and electronic equipment.
- Bringing prevention criteria into improvements in source separation.
- Greening events and festivals.
- Adapting municipal ordinances and greening the Administration.
The Plan set out 31 actions. Each action was defined with the elements needed to support its rollout, and linked to target audiences, prevention objectives and the corresponding indicators.
The Plan also set quantifiable targets for 2025 and 2030 and estimated how much each action would contribute to reaching them. The model projected an estimated reduction of 60.82 kg of waste per inhabitant per year by 2030, compared with the baseline scenario.
Conclusions
The Plan made it possible to build a prevention policy grounded in the municipality’s real data, not just in regulatory targets.
The waste composition analysis made it possible to identify which materials actually made up the waste generated and to quantify the potential for intervention.
This information was complemented by an analysis of behaviour. The public survey revealed a high level of awareness of the need to reduce waste, but also helped identify specific barriers and opportunities in areas such as single-use packaging, food waste, reuse and repair.
Based on this dual perspective —what happens and why it happens— actions were defined to intervene at different points in the system: citizens, economic activities, schools, the public administration, events and public facilities.
The Plan also incorporated an environmental and climate dimension, quantifying the carbon footprint associated with waste treatment and setting environmental targets linked to the prevention objectives.
The result is a prevention policy that doesn’t just set out what needs to be achieved — it specifies where to intervene, with which tools, and how to measure whether the actions are working.
Lessons learned
- Prevention starts before the waste does. Reducing generation means acting on purchasing, consumption and use decisions, and making it easier for products to be reused, repaired, or keep their value for longer.
- The waste composition profile shows where to focus effort. Knowing the real make-up of waste makes it possible to move from generic prevention to actions aimed at the flows with the greatest potential for reduction.
- Changing behaviour means understanding it first. Citizen data complements the technical figures and helps identify both well-established habits and the barriers that need addressing.
- Prevention needs municipal tools. Communication, ordinances, public procurement, taxation, reuse services, sector support and direct action all help create the conditions for change to be possible.
- Measuring is part of the policy. The Plan distinguishes between specific indicators for monitoring each action and general indicators for assessing prevention’s overall progress, including waste avoided, products reused, and CO₂ emissions avoided.