Public Awareness

Both the City of Ostrava and its waste management company (OZO) organize educational programmes to raise public awareness of environmental issues – including the benefits of waste recycling.

The OZO Waste Education Centre

The OZO Waste Education Centre runs teaching sessions for thousands of primary school pupils every year throughout the city. The company also promotes recycling at various public events and presentations, including competitions and public performances, and it works closely with other organizations such as Ostrava’s zoo. One of the most successful and popular events in the company’s calendar is the annual OZO Open Day.

The OZO Waste Education Centre has its own website.

Educational tools

In addition to standard tools (internet advertising, excursions, information in the press and other media), citizens’ awareness of waste-related issues is also raised via less traditional means – flash mobs giving unannounced drumming performances in Ostrava’s shopping malls; shoppers are an ideal target group, and the drummers send a memorable message on the importance of sorting and recycling. The series of OZO flash mobs follows on from successful campaigns in previous years, including the distribution of sets of colour-coded recycling bags to households in the city. A video of an OZO flash mob at the Nova Karolina shopping mall is available on the OZO website/Facebook page and also on YouTube – see below. [art_yt id=”jXr_m3JApL0″ wvideo=”640″ hvideo=”360″ position=”center” urlvideo=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXr_m3JApL0″ namevideo=”” desc=”” durationmin=”” durationsec=”” upld=”” tmburl=”https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ogk1RAO-Z6w/maxresdefault.jpg” thumbnailwidth=”1280″ thumbnailheight=”720″] .

These activities are also funded via client payments to the EKO-KOM company, which recovers packaging from companies in accordance with their legal obligations under the Packaging Act. Every year the City budget receives over 1,2 million EUR in payments for recovered plastics (in 2016 it received 1,4 million EUR); these funds are used to support and develop the system of separate waste collection and processing.