Get involved

Become a relay

A sincere letter from one resident, then a second, then an association, weighs more than a hundred identical emails. Make the text your own: adapt it to your municipality, sign it, pass it on.

1. Read and share the short version — four pages, ten minutes (French PDF; this site offers an English summary).
2. Write to your mayor and to the head of your intercommunal or waste authority, copying the elected member in charge of waste or ecological transition. Ask for a meeting.
3. Propose a motion to your municipal council — a councillor can table it; a resident can suggest it.
4. Mobilise local actors: reuse centre, fablab, vocational school, chamber of crafts, associations, social economy networks, the association of mayors of your area.
5. Share this site in your association, your neighbourhood council, at the next public meeting.

Who to contact, at which level

Level	Who	What to ask
Municipality	Mayor, councillors	Vote a motion of support and forward it to the waste authority.
Waste authority / intercommunality	President, vice-president for waste or transition, services	Study a pilot site within 12 months.
County / département	Association of mayors	Make the model known to its members.
Region	Waste and circular economy department, social economy chamber	Align the model with regional policies and support schemes.
National	Environment agency, associations of local authorities, reuse networks	Publicise and equip the model.
Education	Schools, vocational schools, training bodies	Build educational projects.
Economy	Craftspeople, companies, chambers of commerce and crafts	Supply or use materials.

In France, the manifesto includes a list of relay contacts by département (PDF). Elsewhere, look for the equivalent bodies in your country.

The rules of a good relay

• Write to your own elected representatives, in your own name, with a few words about your municipality: that is what gets read.
• One message at a time, personalised; never bulk mailings or visible lists of recipients.
• Stay courteous and precise: you are asking for a study, not a cheque.
• A public address is not an invitation to canvassing: respect the rules on direct marketing and personal data protection.
• Follow up once, politely, after a month without reply.

“You already have the competence of sorting. The next step is logical: turn this sorting into local resources rather than a disposal cost.”

Template letter to your mayor or waste authority

Copy, replace the passages in square brackets, adapt to your country. Free to use.

Subject: Proposal to study a “Recycling centre – Reuse centre – Fablab” pilot site

[Dear Mayor / Dear President],

As a resident of [municipality], I am sending you the TRIFAB manifesto, which
proposes adding a reuse centre and a fablab to our recycling centres, so that part
of what is dropped off there can be reused, repaired and transformed locally.
It builds on the competence our authority already exercises, aims at a stable
economic model carried by the social economy, and starts with a pilot site
evaluated on its results.

Would you agree to have its feasibility studied within the next twelve months?
I would be glad to present it to you.

[First name Last name, address, email]

Attachment: TRIFAB manifesto, short version — https://trifab.si/manifesto/

Template motion for a municipal council

Subject: Support for the creation of a TRIFAB “Recycling centre – Reuse centre – Fablab”

The municipal council of [municipality],

Considering that [name of the waste authority] already has competences and
facilities for the collection and direction of waste;

Considering the value of seeking, whenever possible, the reuse, repair and local
recovery of objects and materials that can still be used;

Considering the potential environmental, social, educational and economic
benefits of a system combining a recycling centre, a reuse centre and a fablab,
and the value of having it run by social economy actors;

Considering the value of testing the system through a pilot site before any
generalisation;

Decides:
- to express its support for the principle of a “Recycling centre – Reuse
  centre – Fablab” system on the territory of [waste authority];
- to ask [waste authority] to study the feasibility of at least one pilot site
  within 12 months;
- to ask that this study examine in particular material flows, property needs,
  equipment, human resources, governance, costs, possible funding, the conditions
  of a lasting economic balance, safety rules and local partnerships;
- to propose that interested municipalities, associations, schools,
  craftspeople, companies, reuse and social economy structures be associated
  with this reflection;
- to ask that the results of the pilot site, if created, be the subject of an
  annual public report including indicators of flows, activity, employment and
  cost;
- to forward this decision to [waste authority] and the competent services.

Adapted from the French templates of the manifesto by D. Dambreville (CC BY 4.0).