The Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands honoring again this year World Environment Day which is consistently celebrated on June 5 every year, as the main event of the UN since 1972 to inform the world public about environmental problems facing humanity and also on the occasion of the 5th ICC City Lab from June 14th to June 23rd, 2022, is very pleased to announce the following actions and results that have taken place and are hoped to contribute drastically to reducing the overall environmental footprint of our Municipality but and its ongoing effort to harmonize with national and European legislation and especially with the “European Green Deal”.

These activities closely follow the axes that the Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands has declared since October 2020 in the 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) programme of the European Commission, which are:

  1. Waste management and circular economy 
  2. e-Government and digitizing public services 
  3. Smart and green mobility and transport 
  4. Scaling up renewable energy solutions and energy-efficiency 

 

Waste management and circular economy

On Friday, June 03 at 7:00 p.m. in the “Garden of the People” there will be an award ceremony for the schools of the Municipality of Central Corfu & Diapontia Islands for their participation in the “Let’s Recycle” School Marathon. In addition, in the same area from 18.00, outdoor environmental activities for students and adults will take place, with an educational as well as an entertaining nature.

During the School Recycling Marathon 2021 – 2022, which took place for the 3rd consecutive year in the schools of our Municipality but for the first time with the participation of Secondary Education schools, a total of 8,377 kilos of recyclable materials were collected but mainly 3,531 were raised and activated students from the 36 schools that had declared participation in the School Marathon for the academic year 2021-2022.

The students and teachers applied “Separation at Source” of four streams (recyclable materials), and a totally separate collection of paper, plastic, aluminum, and batteries was achieved, in the following quantities:

Paper: 5,600 kg

Plastic: 2,560 kg

Batteries: 12 kg

Aluminum: 205 kg

 

e-Government and digitizing public services 

The Municipality of Central Corfu and the Diapontia Islands officially started its collaboration with the Novoville electronic platform, in the 2nd half of 2020, providing both its municipal services and its citizens a powerful weapon in the toolbox of dealing with everyday problems.

In less than 2 years, the number of citizens who have registered on the platform has reached 6,186, from which approximately 9,691 requests have come, of which only 323 are currently pending, numbers that place our Municipality among the best relative rates of solving everyday problems.

Citizens’ requests with the highest frequency are those of “public damage – lighting” and “abandoned bulky object”, while requests for “abandoned vehicle”, “pothole in the road surface”, and “grasses” also appear frequently.

Also, more than 70 useful informational messages have been sent to users from the platform for their critical information, a tool that proved especially useful during the pandemic and the various health measures that were in force at times.

The Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands hopes to increase the number of users of the Municipality on the Novoville platform in order to better organize its services and more effectively deal with the accumulated problems facing the island.

 

Smart and green mobility and transport 

The Municipality of Central Corfu & Diapontia Islands, and especially the city of Corfu, is expected to soon participate in the development of a modern and innovative idea such as car sharing, contributing to the substantial reduction of the carbon footprint from the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the vehicles but also the substantial transformation of the city of Corfu into a truly “green” one.

The installation, initially at a research stage, of a system and integrated electronic service of shared use (sharing) of electric vehicles, is hugely accepted in tourist places, abroad (such as in Rome where more than 5 different car-sharing companies operate, including the Municipality of the city) and is expected to offer a significant benefit to the citizens as well as the visitors of our Municipality.

 

Scaling up renewable energy solutions and energy-efficiency 

The Municipality of Central Corfu and the Diapontian Islands organized in collaboration with the independent Energy Regulatory Authority (RAE) the “Energy Transition Week”, during the period 09/05/2022 – 13/05/2022, where through Targeted, interactive, educational activities that included specially designed games, offered the opportunity to students of Primary and Secondary Schools of the Municipality, both urban and the Diapontian Islands, to come in contact with concepts such as:

  • the phenomenon of climate change,
  • the concept of energy transition in the islands,
  • the energy crisis and how it affects the islands,
  • smart grids,
  • smart homes,
  • the electric drive,
  • the development of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and their benefits in the islands,
  • energy saving, etc. 

Finally, it is noted that the specific actions were planned, and implemented and are part of the participation of the Municipality of Central Corfu and the Diapontian Islands in the “100 Intelligent Cities Challenge” programme of the European Commission, where the Municipality demonstrates a high and stable commitment and is represented by the Deputy Mayor of European Programmes, Development, and Digital Governance as well as the Project Manager of the local ICC team – “100 Smart Cities”, Panagiota Tzanne and the Scientific Advisor and Assistant Project Manager of the local ICC team, Victor Dimoulis.