In the third episode of this season’s ‘Behind the Scenes’, Jennifer Baker talks to Andrej Fidersek, a Slovenian zero-waste specialist who recently won the Rising Star Prize given by EU’s New European Bauhaus programme aimed at designing smarter and better future ways of living. He co-founded and runs the Zero Waste Žalec and leads a pioneering initiative called Zero Waste House: Towards Circular Commons.

Fond memories playing in his grandparents’ townhouse garden inspired his vision of creating “green oases” in urban settings. “I was really disappointed by all the waste I saw as a young boy lying everywhere around. I had this innate sense that I have to fix these inefficiencies that I saw,” he tells our journalist Jennifer Baker. Working in logistics and studying international retail marketing at Caledonian University Glasgow confirmed what he suspected as a youth… that fresh ideas are needed to re-use waste and improve our interaction with nature in urban settings especially.

Andrej is a keen urban gardener, aquaponics enthusiast and a self-declared “amateur solar-punk”. His research interests include social ecology, resilience, and the circular economy. He has also been known to dabble in science-fiction writing. That fits with the Bauhaus vision, too.

Find out more:

·       Read about the Zero Waste House

·       Visit the Zero Waste Žalec

·       Discover more in the New European Bauhaus

·       Read more about the EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities

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