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Leena Vuotovesi, the leader of environmental work in Europe’s greenest town, Ii in Finland, travels to Chile and Spain to compare recycling practices.

First she visits La Pintana - Chile’s unlikely climate champion: an impoverished neighbourhood plagued by crime and violence that recycles more than any other town in Chile. They turn residents’ vegetable waste into compost, used cooking oil into biodiesel and discarded cigarette ends into fertiliser - and they save money in the process. Leena meets locals who are keen to participate in building a circular economy and finds that La Pintana’s mayor, a woman with a mission to improve the local environment is key to driving the changes.

Leena then goes to a pristine part of southern Spain - a country where municipal recycling rates lag way behind EU targets. She speaks to children, teachers and waste management experts to find out why Spanish people don’t appear to care about recycling and to see what could be done to reduce environmental and economic damage.

Produced by Erika Benke

Photo: Residents of La Pintana collect a free plant after filling a bottle with discarded cigarette ends Credit: Municipalidad de La Pintana