Representatives of the local government of Mahdia, in Tunisia, visited the city of Vic, in Spain, to learn more about the experience of the DECOST project, which has been working to introduce community composting as main strategy to deal with urban organic waste in Mediterranean towns. Representing Mahdia were Mr. Mohamed Boussoffara, Legal Director at the municipality of Mahdia; Mr. Zouhaier Baklouti, Chief Environmental Engineer, Deputy Director of Waste of the City of Mahdia; and Ms. Linda Gharbi, Environmental Specialist, and manager of EG consulting. 

The visit began with an official welcome and a tour of the BETA Tech Center facilities, where the Mahdia representatives learned about the history of the Centre and its different areas of expertise. Afterwards, they had a fruitful meeting with the DECOST project coordinators, Joan Colon and Mabel Mora, where they had the opportunity to share the current state of the waste management system in Mahdia and the results of the recent diagnostic analysis they carried out on their waste management system. Afterwards, DECOST members presented the main results of this ENI CBC Med project and how they have managed to successfully implement some community composting pilot projects in Spain, Italy, Jordan and Palestine. 

In the afternoon both teams visited the DECOST pilot experience in Les Masies de Roda, a town near Vic, where they had the opportunity to learn hands-on how the community composting system is working at real-scale. The visit was accompanied by the mayor of Masies de Roda, Mr Jordi Vistós. Since the end of the DECOST project, the community composting system is managed by the municipality due to its success in reducing the amount of organic waste that ends up mixed with other fractions, and the great satisfaction of the citizens with the model. 

The following day, the representatives of the city of Mahdia visited the waste management plant of the “Mancomunitat la Plana”, a union of small towns that share all their waste management by creating a single entity. There, they learned about different aspects of waste management, what priorities in terms of sorting should be the first to tackle in a city like Mahdia, how the door-to-door collection system can increase the quality of the recycled/composted materials, how can a reuse system can benefit the municipality but also its citizens individually, etc. 

In the afternoon, another meeting was held to discuss and answer questions about the waste management of the City of Vic, and also to introduce other products developed by the Med4Waste project, such as the Med4ZeroWaste & Circular Economy Course. This visit was made possible thanks to the support of the mentoring programme of the Med4Waste project, which under the coordination of Medcities has made it possible to select 6 towns in the Mediterranean region and to give them access to the knowledge generated in the framework of several projects that have been implemented throughout the Mediterranean.