(25 October 2019) – Yesterday evening, the European Commission announced the winners of the 2019 European Social Innovation Competition.
Under this year’s theme, “Challenging Plastic Waste”, three private sector projects out of 543 applicants won a €50,000 grant for creating innovative solutions to promote plastic re-use, recycling, plastic waste reduction and drive behaviour changes.
The awards went to MIWA (Czechia), a circular distribution and sale system for food and non-food products with reusable packaging, SpraySafe (Portugal), an edible spray to preserve food items that reduces the need for plastic packaging, and VEnvirotech (Spain), a biotech start-up that transforms organic waste into biodegradable plastics using bacteria.
The Commission also awarded the 2019 Impact Prize to MTOP Goes Digital (Austria), a learning programme that helps young, highly qualified migrants enter local labour markets.