Intended for artists who create painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving, ceramics and photography works, this year’s edition is open to artists of legal age residing in the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha. The works must contemplate the precepts of the circular economy: either by being made with recycled materials, by showing the impact of waste or by focusing on possible actions which contribute to the protection of the environment.

9,000 in prizes at regional and national level

The winning entry in Castile-La Mancha will be awarded a prize of €1,500. In addition, the winner will compete alongside the winners of the other three autonomous communities participating in this edition (Andalusia, Balearic Islands and Cantabria) for the national prize of 3,000 Euros, meaning that the winner of the national competition will receive prizes amounting to 4,500 Euros. CirculArt will distribute a total of €9,000 in regional and national prizes this year. Two honorary runners-up prizes will also be awarded in each region.

In its first edition, 120 authors from the regions of Asturias, Castile-Leon, Madrid and presented, from the peculiar artistic vision of their works, the actions that each and every one of us can take for a more sustainable future, with a view to mitigating the generation of waste, as well as the environmental and social impact this entails.

“We hope that this new edition will also capture the attention of artists from Castile-La Mancha and the other participating autonomous communities, and that these artists will present their works in this creative space, designed to awaken the environmental side of our consciousness. Our objective is to improve on the numbers of the first edition of CirculArt, which were excellent in themselves, especially considering that it was a new competition. A success which at was also recently recognised with one of the awards for the 100 best ideas of the year from Actualidad Económica (Economic Activity Magazine)”, explains Laura Alonso, ERP Spain Director.

Registration, exhibition and award ceremony

Interested artists must register their works via the mundoarti digital platform  (https://www.mundoarti.com/concursos/CVQ0103/ii-edicion-certamen-nacional-de-artes-plasticas-circulart/). The winner from Castile-La Mancha will be made public, together with the winners from the other three participating regions, in mid-January 2023, while the jury will announce the name of the national winner during the awards ceremony, which will take place in late January.

ERP is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries and accumulators (WB&A). Its objectives also include raising social awareness and consciousness for the correct management of waste and the promotion of the circular economy.

About European Recycling Platform (ERP)

European Recycling Platform was founded in 2002 in response to the introduction of the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. Created by producers for producers, its mission is to ensure high quality and efficient implementation of the Directive, for the benefit of its member companies and the environment. In June 2014, ERP became part of the Landbell Group, an international supplier of consultancy services and environmental and chemical compliance solutions, which operates SCRAP in 16 countries, in the field of WEEE, waste batteries and accumulators (WB&A) and packaging. ERP and the Landbell Group have separately collected more than 6 million tonnes of packaging waste, more than 4 million tonnes of WEEE and more than 90,000 tonnes of waste portable batteries.

In Spain, ERP is the only SCRAP (extended producer responsibility collective scheme) for waste electrical and electronic equipment, batteries and accumulators, with a pan-European presence operating in our country. In WEEE, since 2005, with the transposition of the first WEEE Directive into Spanish law, and in ERP since 2008. The SCRAPs are non-profit organisations, set up in Spain by manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment and batteries, whose objective is to ensure the correct management of these types of products when they become waste.

La entrada “CirculArt”, an art competition for raising awareness in Castile-La Mancha society about the impact of our waste kicks off se publicó primero en Circul Art.

CirculArt is a plastic arts and photography competition, set up in 2021 by the European Recycling Platform Spain, with the collaboration of Amiab Group, with the objective of demonstrating the impact of waste in our society, as seen through art. With a view on the fostering the circular economy, more than a hundred Spanish artists presented their sculptures, paintings, collages, photographs and artistic interventions, always under the approach to sustainability. The 12 winning works and a further thirty selected works were on display in a physical exhibition held in Madrid at the end of October, followed by a virtual exhibition accessible online until 31 December.

“We wanted to get actively involved in the much-needed area of raising awareness about the waste we generate and to inspire the necessary changes in society, something for which the arts are the best way. CirculArt was set up with the desire to become a space of reference for making visible and awakening, from the plastic arts, a transformative vision of society, which fosters a new model in line with the circular economy”, explains Laura Alonso from ERP Spain.

“We are proud that this initiative, in which we poured so much effort and enthusiasm into, has deserved the attention and recognition of such consolidated and prestigious awards as the ‘100 best ideas’. But, most importantly, we hope that this mention will contribute to raise awareness as a society and make visible the importance of the circular economy, prevention, reuse, selective collection and recycling of our waste”, adds Alonso.

About European Recycling Platform (ERP)

European Recycling Platform was founded in 2002 in response to the introduction of the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. Created by producers for producers, its mission is to ensure high quality and efficient implementation of the Directive, for the benefit of its member companies and the environment. In June 2014, ERP became part of the Landbell Group, an international supplier of consultancy services and environmental and chemical compliance solutions, which operates SCRAP in 16 countries, in the field of WEEE, waste batteries and accumulators (WB&A) and packaging. ERP and the Landbell Group have separately collected more than 6 million tonnes of packaging waste, more than 4 million tonnes of WEEE and more than 90,000 tonnes of waste portable batteries.

In Spain, ERP is the only SCRAP (extended producer responsibility collective scheme) for waste electrical and electronic equipment, batteries and accumulators, with a pan-European presence operating in our country. In WEEE, since 2005, with the transposition of the first WEEE Directive into Spanish law, and in EPR since 2008. The SCRAPs are non-profit organisations, set up in Spain by manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment and batteries, whose objective is to ensure the correct management of these types of products when they become waste.

La entrada CirculArt competition, recognized as one of “The 100 best ideas of the year” of the magazine Actualidad Económica se publicó primero en Circul Art.