By the end of June 2017, almost 4,500 children of various ages have visited the centre or participated in related workshops at school, with the experience valued as excellent in terms of human resources and programme material.

In the first half of 2017, the Maresme Consortium has exceeded all expectationsand has practically equalled the figures for the whole of 2016 with respect to thenumber of guided visits for schools to the Centre and participation in workshops atthe schools themselves, with 4,471 visitors compared to 4,826 in the whole of 2016.

Although visitors and participants come from a wide age range, the majority (80%) come from the 1st and 2nd year of Secondary School and the upper cycle of Primary school. What is more, the level of satisfaction of the schools is very good,and the human resources and programme materials have been valued as excellent.For 4 years, the Consortium has been improving its programme of environmental education through a monitoring service, the guided visits and educational workshops for groups carried out for schools and other institutions at the Maresme Integral Centre for Waste Recovery. This programme has made the Consortium a pioneering entity in raising awareness and carrying out educational activities related to the environment in general and waste in particular.

The programme of guided visits to the Centre includes a great variety of activities and features which make it an educational but fun way to learn about the world of waste. The visits include time in an environmental classroom, an exterior tour with explanatory totem poles which clarify each part of the process, an audiovisual space known as the Green Sphere, and the 4D Waste Simulator, the only one of its kind worldwide in this type of installation. In it people can experience first-hand the process of how a bag of rubbish passes through the plant.

Having analysed the results of the first half of 2017, the objective of the programme is to maintain the same gradual increase with respect to participation numbers, and for this reason, improvements will be made to make the experience even more educational and attractive for everybody. Therefore, for the next schoolyear 2017-18, the current workshops will be updated to incorporate three newideas aimed at different age groups.

For more information about visits and the programme of environmental education workshops, please visit the programme’s website: www.unvoltalsresidus.com