This Greek island solved its rubbish problem - by getting rid of its landfill entirely

Small islands, like Tilos here in Greece, all face the same problem – rubbish. Shipping it somewhere else is just too expensive. So most such islands do what Tilos used to do – bury everything in a landfill. Out of sight, out of mind. But a few years ago Tilos decided to stop doing that. Today this is officially the first zero-waste island on the planet. Tilos, an idyllic island in the southeast of the Greek archipelago, draws visitors who value its quiet coastlines. Like Mavis Williams, who bought a house here seven years ago. But then she was told something unexpected – there is no more taking rubbish out to street bins. From now on, someone would come to collect it at her door. I remember thinking, goodness, is this really going to work? Because, you know, we have a village which has got little narrow streets. How are they going to get up and collect all this waste? Before we had these big huge bins and they were overflowing. People would leave things beside it. Every resident received special bags to sort recyclables and organic waste at home for the collection teams to pick up. They're so efficient at collecting everything. You don't feel that you've got waste hanging around at all. Every waste bag and bin in Tilos carries an individual QR code. When collectors scan it, they log the weight of each bag on the spot. The data helps managers run the system more efficiently, flag problems early and gives residents a way to track their own recycling through a mobile app. In Livadia, the island's main village, small electric vehicles handle collections from the residents as well as hotels, restaurants and other businesses along the seafront. Tilos used to send 87% of its waste to landfill. That figure is now zero. The island has no landfill at all. The site, that was once a large rubbish heap, with plastic blowing onto nearby beaches, is now the centre of circular innovation, where all the island's waste is sorted and processed. Now we're in Tilos' old harbour. It's closed down, there's no more waste. It's now surrounded by a new recycling system. An island that produces waste, but won't see anything. 100% of the waste is processed. In fact, 330 tonnes of waste are produced each year. 60% is recycled, 30% is organic and the remaining 10% is nothing but fuel, which is used by the industry. The waste arriving from across the island is sorted by hand into 15 categories. Plastics, glass, aluminium, batteries, textiles and more. It's then compressed and shipped to the mainland, not as rubbish, but as valuable raw material for recycling. The most important reason for a programme like this to succeed is for the citizens to participate and to be able to separate the materials beforehand. When the materials are not properly separated, our work here is extremely difficult. The small fraction that cannot be recycled is converted into alternative fuel. Food scraps and other organic waste are composted into fertilizer. From a landfill to a model of circularity, a transformation recognised by Zero Waste Cities, a European certification standard. It's not the first time Tilos has led the way. The island switched to renewable electricity years ago. That instinct or environmental thinking helped when Polygreen, a Greek waste management company, brought its Zero Waste concept to the island with backing from the region of South Aegean. A door-to-door education campaign brought residents on board, but one household at a time. Mayor Maria Kamma explains. But what about the tourists? With around 500 permanent residents, the island's economy depends heavily on seasonal visitors. With only a few public bins remaining, tourists carry their rubbish back to their hotel. The clean streets seem to make it worthwhile, at least for this visitor from England. I've not had a problem at all. I just put it in my backpack and it's aesthetically pleasing. It's just much nicer to look at rather than overflowing, dirty bins. And there's no smell either. The island is not just recycling its waste, it's producing far less of it. Residents of Tilos now throw away 43% less than before the project began, knowing that everything is processed by hand and being able to track their own figures alongside their neighbours, has pushed people to reduce, reuse and recycle rather than simply dispose. Statis Kontos is the Secretary-General, the Senior Administrative Manager of the Municipality of Tilos. We believe that now it's no longer about waste, it's about materials. Everyone has a second life and we try to find their second life in everything. It's their best use. Whether it's recycling or composting, we believe it's something that can be achieved everywhere. It's a matter of education, education of the new generation and it's a matter of dealing with things. We have to look at things differently. The Just Go Zero Tilos project is ready to grow. Regional authorities are planning to extend the model so that more small islands across Greece stop burying their waste and start dealing with it properly.