Winners of the 2024 Don't Waste Award

The 2024 edition of the Non sprecare Award, the brainchild of Antonio Galdo – director of www.nonsprecare.it – and promoted by Luiss Guido Carli University, is dedicated to cities, at the heart of Goal 11 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Fifty-six percent of the world's population (4,4 billion people) lives in cities, and by 2050, this percentage will rise to 70 percent. At the same time, looking at Italian cities through the lens of sustainability, we discover that in 2023, 18 of the 98 cities surveyed exceeded daily PM10 limits. Here are the winners in the various categories.

Index of topics

Category “Institutions”

The municipality of Treviso has been designated European Green Capital for 2025, the first Italian city to achieve this coveted milestone. The experience of this Veneto city is crucial for understanding the mechanisms that enable extraordinary results to be achieved, in the interests of its citizens. Two facts are worth mentioning immediately: Treviso is simultaneously the Italian city with the highest percentage of separate waste collection and the lowest waste tax.

“Young People and Startups” Category

The BluEat project was created by five women, who call themselves the shellfish, protagonists of a recovery and reuse process that transforms a marine danger, the blue crab, into a job and business opportunity.

Category “Associations”

The Testaccio Social Concierge initiative, run by the TestaccioinTesta association, in one of Rome's most popular neighborhoods, where shops still display their characteristic historic signs and the average age of residents has significantly increased in recent years, has launched an extraordinary project to help elderly people or those struggling with loneliness. Marina, Mauro, Goffredo, and the other Testaccio Social Concierge volunteers solve everyday problems large and small and care for the most vulnerable, the elderly.

“Companies” Category

Itlas is a model company in the circular economy. Flooring, paneling, and even armchairs and furniture: all produced, with an elegant and unique design, from recycled wood scraps, thus also reducing the waste disposal chain.

Category “Schools and Universities”

The Istituto Comprensivo 2 e 4 of Vicenza has created Nature Classrooms. These green spaces, WWF-style, promote environmental education and sustainability. All students also have lunch boxes so they can take any leftover food home from the cafeteria and avoid wasting it.

Category “Character”

The ordeal of Edoardo Giordan, born in 1993, began when he recently turned 20. Born in Torrimpietra, a hamlet of Fiumicino, the sports-loving young man felt his right foot and leg frequently numb. Then they turned marble-white, with sharp pains, cramps, and tingling. The diagnosis was Burger's disease, a rare condition for which extensive physical activity is recommended. In reality, Edoardo suffers from another rare condition, PAES (Popliteal Artery Entrapment Syndrome), which makes movement extremely harmful. So much so that the young man was forced, in a classic case of medical malpractice, to have his leg amputated above the knee. From that moment on, a long period of darkness began in Edoardo's life, and he was also struck by depression, but despite this he became a sports champion, winning several medals, especially in individual and team sabre, and in 2018 he won the Paralympic Fencing World Cup in Pisa and joined the Police.

The 2024 Don't Waste Award: All the Winners