Read How This City Went from Zero Recycling to Zero Waste

Sixteen years ago, all the waste in Ljubljana, Slovenia ended up in a landfill, costing money and resources. But then a new plan took hold, and now Ljubljana is known as the first European capital to devote its time and effort to going zero-waste.

While Europe plans to separate the collection of biowaste by 2023, Ljubljana is around two decades ahead of the curve. The capital city aims to recycle 75% of its waste by 2025, and it developed Europe’s most modern plant for treating biological waste to accelerate this process: the Regional Centre for Waste Management.

The centre, which can turn biowaste into high-quality gardening compost, uses natural gas to produce its own heat and electricity, and sends less than 5% of residual waste to landfill – the other 95% is processed into recyclable materials and solid fuel.

That said, the city is still seeking better ways of disposing waste in apartment buildings, and finding alternatives to using an extensive amount of cemetery candles. “Of course they could do even better,” says Pierre Condamine, waste policy officer at Zero Waste Europe. “As we say: zero-wasters are always happy, but never satisfied.”