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News | 2021-05-05
Bogota Colombia

Waste management study in Bogotá receives funding from Smart City Sweden

A team of Swedish experts reviewed the current situation of waste management in the city of Bogotá and presented guidelines on how to enhance sorting at source and increase recycling.

Colombia recently updated their National Determined Contributions and announced the ambitious goal to decrease greenhouse gas emissions with 51 percent by 2030, compared to 2020. Waste management and diversification of the energy matrix are a part of the plan to achieve the targeted reduction.

Smart City Sweden has received several delegations from Colombia in the previous year where Swedish experts presented best practices in waste management. The virtual visits led to the project where Swedish experts have analysed the local situation in Colombia and provided guidelines on how to improve the system.

The study provides short-, medium- and long-term recommendations for solid waste management, focused on source separation and recycling. The suggested action plan also emphasizes the importance of waste-to-energy technologies and presents different financing possibilities for the proposed options. These recommendations are based on the experiences from Sweden and international projects.

– Awareness raising and citizen engagement are crucial to increase sorting at source, and we are happy to share our experiences in developing effective communication materials so that the message is conveyed successfully to the citizens, says Aditi Bhasin, Project Manager at IVL and Smart City Sweden.

Bogotá was selected as the first of the Colombian cities to receive the Smart City Sweden co-funding for a waste management study.

– In Bogota, we have chosen food waste as one of the prioritized streams because of the huge opportunity there to limit the climate impact of this waste is treated properly. We feel confident that the Swedish team supports this decision and has given us further suggestions on how we can achieve the desired results, says Javier Baquero, Deputy Secretary for Planning and Policy in Bogota.

For more information, please contact:
Aditi Bhasin, aditi.bhasin@ivl.se, +46 (0)10-788 67 08

The study is a collaborative effort between the Secretariat of Housing and UAESP on behalf on the city of Bogotá and Smart City Sweden together with other participating Swedish organisations. The project was carried out by a team of experts from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Borlänge Energy, Rise, Sweco, and Business Sweden, and supported by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth.

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