The Smart Waste Agency Game (The SWAG) is an edutaining, Open-Source tabletop and card game. A playful narrative to inspire discussion and action in the fields of Recycling & the Circular Economy
As we onboard on our half week old Open Collective let's have a look at our "roadmap". There ain´t no roads in the SWAG project. Just agile sprints mapping a path in fresh territory. This his how we embarked in 2024 on a Smart Waste Game De...
The Smart Waste Agency Game (The SWAG) is an edutaining, open-source tabletop and card game. It immerses players in the world of waste types, recycling techniques, and the circular economy, fostering creativity, collaboration, and environmental awareness.
2025 "Out of town into EUrope"
In 2025, we aim to take our game out of town and into the European Union. Our goal is to connect young people from diverse EU countries through our gamified social network, co-create waste monster cards, smart waste multi-tools, and build tabletop wastelands. We also aim to localize the game in different languages and cultural contexts while sparking conversations about smart waste, zero waste, recycling and a Circular Economy in our cities.
Develop and launch the SWAG gamified open-source collaboration social network.
Create Play&Learn educational bonus material
Find a local partner in the administrative Capital of the EU: Brussel.
Create and host a synchronous SWAG game design event in Brussels and Kassel in April 2025 and connect the participants via the collaboration network
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2024 "A different way of co-developing an educational game with Youth Participation + city and non-profit actors"
In the beginning we asked: “How can we be smarter with our monstrous waste and aim for 0 wastefulness?” A pretty smart Elder once said:
“Play is the highest form of research" Albert Einstein
We took him literally and developed a playful Game to explore the question. The Alpha version was developed in 2024 by a coop of 3 City Administration departments including the local waste management corp., 3 non-profits and 63 Children and Teenager within the documenta City of Kassel, Germany. It was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building, via KfW Bank and the Smart City Kassel Model Project. It has been released as an Open Educational Resource under a Creative Commons license. A printed game set shared as an Early Access alpha Version after just 5 agile sprint months on December 5th 2025 during the „Smart Social“ Conference, hosted by the German Ministry of Urban Development. Initial direct funding has ended in December 2024. The 2025+ FunDing is now done via Open Collective, gratefully fiscal hosted under the Open Collective EUrope foundation.
