CURE+ Baseline study: City of Kavala, Greece

Kavala is a coastal municipality in the North Aegean Sea and sits in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region of Greece. Being the capital of the prefecture with a total of 125,000 residents, Kavala city has a population of approximately 56,000 inhabitants (Municipality of Kavala, 2023). Its economy is run by large service industries, mostly related to tourism and public sectors such as agriculture, fishing, and quarrying. The other industries in the city include agrifood, oil, and chemical sectors.

Based on the General Urban Plan, the municipality has a total area of 722.75 ha, and is expected to expand further by 240 ha (Chatzivatyriti et al., 2022).

Kavala has airport and ports rich in history and antiquity. Its city is accessible through different means, such as by sea via the port of Kavala, by road through the Egnatia Motorway and by air, through the Kavala Airport. The airport alone serves international flights on certain months – from May to September, and domestic flights year round. There are around 350,000 total passengers annually (Chatzivatyriti et al., 2022).

The Municipality of Kavala is active in taking part in several initiatives that integrate circular economy in its policies. In terms of the construction and demolition waste (CDW), the interest is mainly related to the significant number of buildings that are currently in bad condition and require demolition, and to several small-scale renovations to provide short-term accommodation to tourists, as a result of booming tourism industry (Samourkasidou et al. 2022; Chatzivatyriti et al., 2022).

The significant quantities of bulky waste, as well as CDW, are a major challenge for the municipality. Based on a 2016 city report, there are approximately 530 buildings classified as ready for renovation, with 23% of them located in the wider city centre.