News

Within the framework of the project, the association Zero Waste Latvia has been maintaining the digital platform Lietovelreiz.lv for two years already, providing residents with up-to-date information on circular economy opportunities. We share the results of the activities and future plans.

One of the key objectives set by EU directives is to reduce the amount of landfilled waste to 10% of the total generated municipal waste by 2035. In order to reduce waste generation, ensure more efficient waste management, and decrease the volume of landfilled waste, it is necessary to implement circular economy principles and material recovery from waste streams at various levels.

To move Latvia towards achieving this landfilled waste reduction target, Zero Waste Latvia created the platform Lietovelreiz.lv within the framework of this project in 2023. It should be emphasized that the main goal of the Lietovelreiz.lv platform is to encourage residents to rethink their habits and to facilitate the use of repair, rental, and other similar services, as well as to increase the availability of services that replace the purchase of new goods – including item exchange, donation, and sharing opportunities.

For this reason, the platform actively cooperates with various organizations that have integrated circular services into their activities, which reduce consumption and are oriented towards social goals. Currently, the platform has 11 partner locations where items offered for circular use are visible in the platform’s Item Catalogue:

● CleanR construction materials and renovation items exchange point “Nomales”, Ropaži Municipality,
● Goethe Institute “Library of Things” in central Riga,
● Woodworking co-creation workshop “Adatu fabrika” in Kuldīga,
● Valmiera Development Agency co-working workshop “DARE”,
● “FabLab Liepāja” digital manufacturing laboratory,
● Co-creation and technology space “OpenLab” in Dobele,
● Innovation laboratories of the Cēsis branch of Riga Technical University,
● “Tavi draugi” association warehouse with item rental options,
● “Tavi draugi” charity shop,
● Item exchange and meeting place “Brīvbode”,
● Līvāni Multifunctional Youth Centre “Kvartāls” Youth Library of Things,
● And more will follow!

To increase the project’s impact, the collection of the Sarkandaugava Library of Things will be launched and published on the platform in March next year! The first neighbourhood Library of Things in Riga will be established within the project Circ@Home #C069 “Resilience through circular and sharing culture in households as a prerequisite for climate-neutral cities: ‘Circ-in-Town = Circ@Home + circular services’”, which is a long-term project under the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme. In this project, Zero Waste Latvia joins forces with organizations and institutions from 8 cities in five Baltic Sea region countries. More information about this project and its developments, including the upcoming Library of Things, can be found by following the project’s LinkedIn profile and the project website. Information about the Library of Things concept can be found on the association’s website.

The main objectives of the digital platform Lietovelreiz.lv and their performance indicators:

●      To facilitate finding online services that replace the purchase of new products-such as repair, rental, sharing, and other equivalent services. For example, the Services Map includes more than 2,700 locations across 33 different categories where services are available that substitute the purchase of new items, i.e. item exchange, repair, rental, sharing, second-hand trade, and donation opportunities.

Screenshot from https://www.lietovelreiz.lv/lv/karte

●      To provide digital support to project partners-waste management and sorting companies-in order to promote the availability of items prepared for reuse. The Catalogue created on the platform serves as a digital overview of items that have been prepared for reuse within partners’ activities, for example by LTD CleanR. Data tracking carried out this year shows that at the exchange point “Nomales”, 1.96 tonnes of various items were returned to circulation in 2023, while in 2024 this amount increased to 7.97 tonnes. The Catalogue section has already been viewed by 77 thousand platform users.

Screenshot from https://www.lietovelreiz.lv/lv/lietu-katalogs
●      To increase the availability of information also for consumers – so far, the platform has been visited by 35 thousand unique visitors, and the data shows that many of them return to the platform repeatedly. As a result of joint communication activities, an increasing number of interested people are learning about the activities of the platform’s partners and about items prepared for circular use in various locations across Latvia.

●      To encourage residents to rethink their consumption habits by offering educational and informational content, as well as opportunities to engage in activities related to the circular use of items across Latvia. It is quite challenging to objectively measure changes in consumption habits, but one of the methods used within the project is public opinion surveys. The results of the previous survey can be found in the research publication, and in spring we will report on the comparative results of a repeated survey.

This year, substantial additions and improvements have been made to the platform, including:

○ the development of a Circular Economy Action Roadmap for municipalities, created in cooperation with the Cēsis municipality and the association “Zaļā brīvība”,
○ improvements to information filtering and search functions across all sections,
○ the ability to filter Catalogue items by organization,
○ improved centering of the Services Map, now available by location or by entering a populated place.

In the coming year, several new content additions to the platform are planned. We encourage users to make use of the platform’s opportunities in their daily lives and to contact us at lietovelreiz@zerowastelatvija, if you see opportunities to expand, improve, or collaborate.