0.666: Circular entrepreneurship

You can find the young collective 0.666 at the old fisherman's wharf on the Ostend East Bank. This partnership between stakeholders from very diverse backgrounds is an incubator for the circular economy and socially responsible business practices.

Michiel De Baets, coordinator of this innovative initiative, explains: "The stakeholders include youth organisations, arts organisations, young entrepreneurs and organisations centred around the circular economy. We founded 0.666 with 10 such organisations."

The collective has moved into a former fishing cooperative building. Remarkably, this building is surrounded by new luxurious high-rises on one side and old fisherman's houses on the other side. 

At the moment, there is still little interaction between the new and old residents. But the initiators of this project want to change that: "We wish our building to serve as a bridge between communities which connects people and brings them into contact with each other."

The old part of the neighbourhood is characterised by considerable poverty and numerous young people from vulnerable backgrounds. One of the principal objectives of 0.666 is to guide these young people towards the labour market. To this end, various innovative projects are set up.

One of these projects revolves around the reuse of marine litter: "We will produce slates from plastic waste we find along the shoreline. We will pelletise it and bake the pellets into a kind of slate."

Read more about the topics Blue Tourism and Ocean Pollution & Waste Solutions.