Maresme Circular, the brand of the Maresme Waste Consortium, celebrated young talent by taking part this Thursday 6th June in the awards ceremony of the 6th edition of the Metrópolis FP Lab, a programme of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and the BCN Vocational Training Foundation that aims to promote innovation and creativity among vocational training students while bringing them closer to the labour market.

13 companies and 13 existing challenges

The initiative consists of thirteen companies proposing thirteen real challenges, offering students from different branches of vocational training the opportunity to develop a collaborative project that responds to those challenges.

In its 6th edition, Maresme Circular has joined the programme by posing the following challenge to the students: How can we separate and recycle everyday textile waste that is thrown into the grey bin? The volume of textile waste in our country is around one million tonnes, but only a small part of it is collected selectively and reused locally. How can we improve this?

“For those of us who come from the environmental sector, who are constantly surrounded by bad news, the enthusiasm shown by the finalists was a breath of fresh air“, said the director of Maresme Circular, Carles Salesa, who also highlighted “the students’ capacity for extraction and creativity, for going beyond their academic comfort zone”.

The team from the Institut Escola Municipal de Treball de Granollers has won the challenge that Maresme Circular has set in this 6th edition / Maresme Circular

The team from the Institut Escola Municipal de Treball de Granollers has won the challenge that Maresme Circular has set in this 6th edition. Their project Renova Tèxtil proposes improving the selective collection of textile waste through an application that geolocates the nearest orange textile containers and rewards selective collection with points that can be exchanged for different rewards.

The winning team will receive a paid training grant to develop the project.

More than 1,500 students

In this edition, more than 1,500 students divided into 350 teams from 50 vocational training centres in Catalonia took part in the programme. Of these, 45 teams were selected to participate in the Accelerator workshop in which more than 170 students worked together with the thirteen companies to find innovative solutions to the challenges posed.

In the final phase, the 26 finalist teams presented their projects to a jury that chose the winners of this edition.

In this edition, more than 1,500 students divided into 350 teams from 50 vocational training centres in Catalonia have participated in the programme / Maresme Circular