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This total ban on petrol and diesel powered cars is the city’s effort towards cleaner air. The environmental benefit will be a reduction of 40% of Co2 emissions in the city by 2030.

The government of Brussels approved the Brussels’ Climate Plan, which needs to be submitted to the European Commission by December 31st.

This climate plan is also part of the requirement under Belgian law to demonstrate commitment to the Paris Agreement.

The environmental NGO, Greenpeace took to its social networks to share the news, which quickly caught the attention of the famous actor. Leonardo DiCaprio.

 

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#Regram #RG @greenpeace: Wonderful news! Thousands of Belgians have been campaigning for clean air in Brussels, and now they’ve done it 🙌🏻🙌🏼🙌🏽🙌🏾🙌🏿 Together, we really can make our cities better. We want pollution free cities by 2030. Are you with us? #CleanAirNow . . #EndOil #cars #cities #travel #transport #buses #trains #trams #Brussels #Belgium #publictransport #driving #cleanair #airpollution #resist #environment #climateemergency #climatebreakdown #win #winning #victory #hooray

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on Oct 30, 2019 at 8:56am PDT

According to this climate plan, in addition to the already existing low-emission-zone (LEZ) , there will be a zero-emission zone (ZEZ) in the city center.

Moreover, the most polluting motorcycles are expected to be added to the LEZ restriction by 2022. Meanwhile, the existing LEZ day pass which allows drivers to use banned vehicles 8 times a year in restricted zones will still be valid.

In comparison to the LEZ, the ZEZ will have stricter access criteria. “Diesel and petrol vehicles and motorcycles will be banned earlier in these zones. There will eventually be a complete ban on driving lorries in these zones. This will take into account any possible exceptions.” 

Undoubtedly, the plan includes major investments in public transportation as well as infrastructure.

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GiveActions is a digital startup that works both for the planet and society. In fact, it gives to people between 18 and 35 the possibility to help free environmental and social projects from their smartphones.

The principle of the startup is very simple. Users just have to watch a video sponsored by ethical companies to raise money for an association. In this way, by simply using their smartphones they can plant trees, offer meals to the homeless, or even create nature reserves. All of this in less of two minutes and for free.

Thanks to this award, GiveActions demonstrates that it is possible to link the digital world to good causes, and to use technologies to act for the planet and society.

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The always larger distance between the producer and the consumer leads to an increase in pollution and a reduction of the genuineness and convenience of the products. In recent years, various forms of direct sales have become gradually popular. The aim is to promote local productions, destroying the distances between fields and tables, to present an alternative to the model of large-scale production and distribution.

In Belgium, the direct sales are supported by the GASAPs – groupe d’achats solidaires de l’agriculture paysanne (Solidarity buying group of peasant agriculture). Brothers of the French AMAPs, the GASAPs are the fruit of a citizens’ initiative which aims at supporting peasant agriculture. In fact, a GASAP is not simply a way to buy bio and genuine vegetables, but it is the direct sale, without an intermediary, of the products of the countryside.

How does a GASAP work

The core idea of the direct sale of local food is that producers make more profit by skipping the distribution ring, while the consumer can taste healthy, fresh and quality products at an affordable price.  With this model also the environment wins thanks to the lower CO2 emissions due to the decrease of transports linked to food distribution.

GASAPs work by establishing a partnership between “eaters” and producers who are committed to each other in the long term. Eaters finance a local producer that, for at least one year, will provide them with fresh and local products. In this way, this system allows a direct and supportive relationship with local farms working for agro-ecological agriculture, providing jobs in all the Belgian regions. To be part of a GASAP it is both possible to join an existing group or to create a new one, with friends or neighbours.

A GASAP is a self-managed system. Every two weeks, the producers deliver their products to the place of the permanence of each GASAP. Afterward, the eaters take care of their distribution. Eaters take turns ensuring management schedules, payments, and tasks that allow the GASAP to work.

In every basket, it is possible to find fresh, local and seasonal vegetables. Some farms offer also a “Super-GASAP”. In that case, the basket contains also meat, bread, dairy products, processed products, fruits, and much more… in some cases even chocolate mousse!

Food that has the taste of solidarity with the peasants

“These vegetables, these cheeses have the taste of solidarity with the peasants. They recreate links between the eaters and the producers. We reconnect with the reality of the earth, exit the supermarkets. There are products with lots of values, not just a monetary value”, the GASAP team says.

The payments for the GASAP have to be made at least 3 months in advance, to guarantee a regular income for producers and allow them to forecast their crops. The eaters commit for one year and pledge to find substitutes in case of departure of the GASAP before the end of the season.

Thanks to the support of the Ministry of the Walloon ecological transition, the GASAP Network will continue to raise awareness of the issues of direct selling, peasant agriculture and the link between eaters and producers.

By supporting local producers over the long term, GASAPs also support the Walloon economy and jobs. Thanks to their functioning based on regular meetings with the producers, they make it possible to discover vegetables, recipes, to understand agricultural practices, to meet other humanist citizens.

“Too often we do not know the women and men who feed us. We see their fields, we see their working tools, we appreciate the hedges that punctuate – or not – our landscapes. But too rarely we exchange with them on their exciting, but not valorized enough, jobs”, the GASAP team continues.

You can find more information on the project and discover the existing GASAPs around you, here.

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The community of Ixelles has organized a special evening dedicated to the emergency situation in the Amazon. The documentary will be screened at Cinema Vendôme on October 15th, Tuesday at 20:00.

« The human adventure is at a crossroads. As global warming accelerates, global biodiversity collapses, states seem powerless since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to take the necessary action. Terra Libre, both a logbook and an investigation, has been attached to the legendary indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire for almost four years. Accompanying him and discovering the new guard of the sentinels of the planet, it is to perform a shocking immersion at the heart of global issues, from an emblematic Summit from one UN to the other (Rio + 20 and the COP 21) . The vision and call for the Alliance of Amazonian Indigenous Chiefs to protect future generations is an inspiration to humanity. »

The evening will start will the reception at 19:30, and the film will be projected at 20:00. The debate will start at 22:00.

The entrance costs 5 euros.

TERRA LIBRE, un film de Gert-Peter Bruch – teaser FR from Planète Amazone on Vimeo.

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But food waste doesn’t occur only when edible food is intentionally discarded by consumers after they fail to plan their meals properly and store food until it spoils or goes past the expiry date. At times, food waste can also happen due to oversupply in markets.

This is what gave birth to the idea for the app “Too Good To Go”. “Nobody likes seeing food go to waste, but the reality is that it’s very common for businesses and households to waste food. However, for us it became clear that something had to be done when we saw perfectly good food being thrown away after a buffet…food that was just ‘too good to go’”, the founders say.

The idea is really simple. Too Good To Go is an app providing a marketplace that connects businesses who have surplus food (restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets…) with costumers who want to rescue that food. Customers order a “magic bag” of surplus food at a discount on the retail price and then collect it from the stores in question in a pre-set collection window. The content of the “magic bag” is secret and different every time since it depends on the surplus food of the day.

So, an app that lets everyone do their bit to reduce waste, while also getting delicious food and supporting local businesses. In fact, the businesses get to reduce their waste besides having potential new customers try out their food and users can enjoy great products at a good price.

However, the biggest winner in this equation is the environment.

Food waste produces a large amount of methane – a more powerful greenhouse gas than even CO2 – that it’s responsible for 8% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, food waste also represents a great waste of freshwater and groundwater resources. It is said that a volume of water roughly three times the volume of Lake Geneva is used just to produce food that is not eaten. By throwing out one kilogram of beef, 50,000 liters of water were used to produce that meat is wasted. In the same way, nearly 1000 liters of water is wasted when you pour one glass of milk down the drain. Too Good To Go is able to save around 2.5 million kg of CO₂by saving 1 million meals. This equates to the amount of energy required to charge more than 300 million smartphones.

In Belgium, each year 3.5 million tons of food are thrown away, with an average of 345 kg of food per inhabitant, 15 of which are wasted at home. All this food waste represents a loss of 670 million euros per year. Since Too Good To Go Belgium was launched on March 1, 2018, 1,084,307 meals have been saved.

However, Too Good To Go exists beyond a smartphone, it also wants to contribute as much as possible to the creation of a global movement to fight against food waste. To answer this challenge, the Too Good To Go team has decided to work on 4 pillars that are built around concrete objectives to be held for 2020:

-To influence 50 million individuals: 47 million tons of food are thrown away each year by households in Europe, which represents more than half of the food waste in the European Union. So, raising public awareness on this issue and on ways to combat it, is the key to success. (Check their 6 tips to avoid food waste at home).

-To involve 75,000 businesses: finding solutions to reduce food waste is essential for all actors in the food chain. The app offers to partners the opportunity to generate additional income while exposing their business to a new clientele and establishing themselves as a committed player.

-To inspire 500 schools: Too Good To Go has developed a whole range of educational tools dedicated to food waste. If you’re a student looking for inspiration or a teacher looking for content, all these tools are at your disposal.

-To influence the legislation in 5 countries: food waste is no longer only recognized as a major problem, but also as a challenge to be solved. This growing awareness is thus making its way into the political agendas of an ever-increasing number of countries around the world.

Finally, if you are interested in the fight against food waste, you can consult their blog where they give useful advises on how to reduce food wasting and living in a more environmentally friendly way.

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The celebration might seem funny, but the subject is not. More than 3,2 millions of old cell phones are drag in the drawers of Belgian households. Only 8% is recycled. This is really unfortunate since the devices are full of raw materials that could be re-used. Indeed, several tons of plastic and several hundred kilograms of precious metals (such as gold, silver, and palladium) could be recovered through the recycling of old cell phones.

However, despite the many campaigns on the issue, only a few Belgians bring their phones back to recycle them. According to Saar Bentein, Recupel’s spokesman, “One of the main reasons for this failure is the sentimental value given to the object. It is important for us to reinforce the general awareness on the subject. The more devices we collect, the more we can reuse their raw materials. In this way, we will have less and less need to resort to traditional mining”. In fact, always according to Recupel, even 99% of old phones’ materials can be recycled.

In this case, it has to be underlined the double importance of recycling. In fact, Saar Bentein concludes: “Urban mining is not only good for the environment, but also for society. Just think of countries like Congo, where cobalt contained in cell phones batteries is often extracted in inhumane conditions”.

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Four years after major agreements on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on their financing, today Heads of State and Government are reviewing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in New York. The aim is to provide political guidance and identify actions to accelerate implementation.

All the reports already agree: progress is insufficient and the challenges are considerable. UN Secretary-General Guterres wants more ambition and concrete measures. Along with the Climate Action Summit, this should be the starting point for a decade of ambitious action.

More ambition, more multilateralism

Together with H.M. Queen Mathilde, who will give a speech at Columbia University as UN SDG Ambassador, Minister De Croo also argues for a more ambitious approach that is supported globally:

« No single government can reach the SDGs on its own and governments alone will not be able to respond to all challenges. The active engagement of the private sector, civil society and engaged citizens is crucial to move to a sustainable and inclusive economy ».

In addition to a joint commitment, our country also argues for building bridges between the various SDGs, between the climate and financing agenda. Agenda 2030 must be an inclusive agenda with an eye for the most vulnerable, gender equality and the emancipation of women and girls.

Belgium wants to set a good example. Two years ago, we were among the first group of countries to present their « Voluntary National Review ». Our commitment to Agenda 2030 also reflects from the 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards Report, which ranked Belgium twelfth in the implementation of the sustainable development agenda.

In addition to the SDG Summit, Minister De Croo will also have numerous bilateral contacts over the next few days to emphasize Belgium’s commitment to the SDGs. He will thus meet UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, UNICEF Director Henriette Fore and Global Fund Director Peter Sands.

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The aim of this statement is to give a concrete answer to the numerous citizens’ calls for action and the warnings of the whole scientific community and the IPCC, at the time that opens in New-York, the summit of the UN on the weather. The communal council also wanted to recall which are, in its opinion, the essential policies in the fight against climate change.

In particular, it has set the target that the energy consumption of the City’s buildings has to be provided to 100% by green energy, of which 27% has to be local renewable energy. The communal councilors have also set the objective of carbon neutrality by 2050. There is also the intention of increasing the ambitions of the Climate Plan by implementing the objective of drastic reduction of emissions through several measures, such as its merger with Agenda 21, to ensure cross-cutting in all departments of the administration.

Other policies are the association of a citizen and scientific panel with its regular evaluation and its promotion to the structures that depend on the City of Brussels, the private sector, associations, and the people of Brussels.

From the opposition, the PTB participated in the discussions as well as the MR and the cdH. The motion was supported by all the opposition parties even though the PTB regrets that some of its amendments, such as free public transport, have not been taken into account.

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Conveniently so.

Recupel – the non-profit association that deals with the collection and the processing of discarded electronic equipment and bulbs – has conducted a research to find out more on the matter.

The main issue is that when a refrigerator or freezer is not properly disposed of, the impact on the environment is catastrophic. A refrigerator contains extremely harmful coolants and expansion gases. If those substances are not correctly processed they cause damage to the ozone hole strengthening climate warming. In terms of CO₂ emissions, a device that is not correctly recycled has the same impact of a 7 500 km car ride.

In 2018, 686 459 between refrigerators and freezers had been placed on the market. 5% of the old devices were offered a second life and are still used, while 425 612 were collected by Recupel, or one of its partners, and recycled. This means that 226 524 refrigerators and freezers went missing.

According to the law, the producers of electronic devices should collect the old products and proceed them correctly. However, the old fridges contain precious metals, such as copper, iron and aluminum. Therefore, the scrap dealers offer 15 euros to kitchen builders and electrical traders to extract those materials from the fridges and then they resell them.

“Because of this parallel network, many refrigerators disappear from the radars and are not processed correctly. This quick way of profit only makes the environment loses twice: precious raw materials are not recycled and harmful substances end up in nature”, says Peter Sabbe, CEO of Recupel.

In order to convince the retailers to cooperate with Recuper, the non-profit association has launched the “Here we recycle well” quality label. In this way, when the consumer buys a new refrigerator can know which traders he can leave his old refrigerator with confidence. “We are very happy to see that many kitchen builders and electrical traders are supporting our action,” continues Sabber. Of course, the consumer can always bring his or her old fridge into one of Recupel’s collection points.

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