On 26 October, the ambassador of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the mayor of Cascais, councilor for the environment, the national management unit team, top representatives of EEA Grants and the Secretary General, Alexandra Carvalho, were present in the opening of the traveling exhibition iREC - Recircular! . This exhibition is located in Cascais at Mercado da Vila and will run from the 27th of October to the 13th of December. As a special attraction of the exhibition, we have the Yelli, a 2.5-high jellyfish that was made from recycled beverage packaging and collected in the iREC machines. The theme of the sculpture was directly inspired by the problems of marine litter, consisting essentially of discarded plastic, and by the climate changes that lead to the multiplication of invasive species.
The iREC project – Innovating recycling in just nine months has already collected more than 600 thousand plastic, aluminum or glass beverage containers. With 15 returnable deposit machines in the main commercial areas of Cascais, the iREC project allows the return of beverage packaging and its reinsertion into the production cycle and challenges all Cascais residents to adopt new consumption behaviors that contribute to the circular economy and the future national beverage packaging deposit system.