The To-Be-Green spin-off and the CVR – Centre for Waste Valorisation interface are part of a new project that was launched in Guimarães, during the European Week for Waste Prevention, entitled “Collecting and Valuing” and that foresees a strong campaign of awareness, collection and valuation of masks. This is an integrated, aggregating and multidisciplinary project that also includes the To-Be-Green spin-off and the CVR-Centre for Waste Valorisation, which will have the responsibility, from the collected masks, to create new products made from textile fibres or to valorise them in polymeric plates and briquettes.

Recognising that community and disposable masks today represent a growing waste, with a strong impact on ecosystems, particularly marine, a synergy created between the Municipality of Guimarães, Landscape Laboratory, VITRUS and the Guimarães 2030 Mission Structure, will enable the launch of a campaign to collect masks in a school context and their valorisation in new products.

The collection process will be carried out at the School Groupings headquarters, as part of the PEGADAS Environmental programme, for which a customised container has been developed, built from recycled mixed plastics.

This is another project that integrates the strategic plan for the Circular Economy (G4CE – Guimarães For Circular Economy), which has received national and international recognition for contributing to an efficient management of resources, with the involvement of citizens and the private sector.