This paper studied the recycling and the reuse of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) with Source Separation. These practices are commonly utilized in the European Union (EU) and internationally, giving successful recycling and treatment examples mainly for 7 selected - segregated household waste streams: a) paper and cardboard b) plastics, c) metals, d) glass, e) clothing and textiles, f) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and g) Edible Oil Wastes (EOW). Greece implements lower recycling levels, 21%, of the annually produced MSW comparing to the EU. In 2021 the Regional Government of Attica launched a pilot program of rewarding recycling with Source Separation called “THE GREEN CITY”. This program consists of 60 Mobile Green Points (MGPs) that serve a unified citizen awareness and waste collection (7 MSW streams) network throughout Attica. This network includes numerous temporary parking and operation spots for the MGPs. A 56% of them is located next to recreation and green areas, registering at least 70,000 citizens in the program and collecting approximately 400 tons of clean recyclable MSW (April 2022). Therefore, “THE GREEN CITY” program serves the setting target of Directive 2018/851 for at least 55% by weight recycling and reuse of the Greek MSW by 2025.

Recently, among European Union (EU) member states, but also globally, there have been available and successful recycling and treatment practices of Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW). Greece has currently implemented low recycling levels, 21%, of the annually produced MSW, compared to the EU regulations. In 2021 the prefectural authorities of Attica Region launched a pilot program of rewarding recycling with source Separation called “THE GREEN CITY”. This program consists of 60 mobile green points (MGPs) that serve at a unified citizen awareness and MSW collection at 7-streams network throughout the prefecture of Attica. In this study, the whole design analysis of “THE GREEN CITY” pilot recycling program contained estimations and calculations of (a) the distances of all waste collection remote itineraries (basic analysis); (b) the annual fuel cost of the MGPs for the realization of all waste collection remote itineraries (financial-based analysis); and (c) the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere from the IVECO MGPs during the coverage of all waste collection remote itineraries (environmental-based analysis). Then a research synthesis of all these analyses revealed and evaluated the pilot recycling program’s real capabilities and limitations in alignment with: (a) its ultimate goal to help Greece achieve the setting target of Directive 2018/851 for at least 55% by weight recycling and reuse of the total annually generated Greek MSW by 2025 and (b) the MGPs proven ability to support environmental sustainability in densely populated prefectures such as Attica.

Since 2021, the prefectural authorities of the Attica Region in Greece have been operating a rewarding recycling program for the collection of clean recyclable waste in collaboration with the “Specialist Integrated Association of the Prefecture of Attica” (EDSNA, in Greek) and private contractors, called “THE GREEN CITY”. This program mobilizes almost 30 mobile green points (MGPs) daily, which are self-propelled trucks that collect clean recyclable materials from citizens and businesses across the Attica Region. After one year of operation, this program has shown promising results, having more than 100,000 registered citizens and having already collected over 500 tons of clean recyclable municipal solid wastes in more than 60 municipalities of Attica. However, these promising results are accompanied by some significant financial and environmental costs. This study presents two different practical improvement scenarios for THE GREEN CITY recycling program’s current situation that ensure (a) the shortening of the annual kilometers and time on the remote routes of all programs, (b) the annual fuel-cost decrease for the MGPs and (c) the annual reduction of their CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Afterwards, we compare these two scenarios and conclude that the “first improvement scenario with main depot decentralization” is more realistic, feasible and has a bigger total sum of positive impacts than the second one. Therefore, this study strongly suggests the implementation of the “first improvement scenario with main depot decentralization” and opens the road to future improvement scenarios for various waste-management systems or recycling programs.