Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council campaigning for better waste sorting

Singles and small families worst at sorting their garbage

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The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV) has launched a four-week campaign in an attempt to intensify the waste sorting of households in the area.
      The ongoing YTV campaign is targeting the weakest link, in other words the young adults and small families who are the laziest waste sorters of all.
      Many singles living alone regard sorting as difficult and unnecessary, as the amount of their household waste is so small. They get frustrated with the sorting of a couple of coffee filters or a few banana skins.
     
Even a small amount of biowaste is worth sorting, as all these unusable remains together accumulate a huge mass of household waste in the Greater Helsinki area, which now has a million inhabitants.
      Moreover, even the behaviour of small families and singles counts - and plenty: the proportion of one-person households in this area is already some 40 per cent.
      Currently, the sorting of biological waste would be particularly advisable, as YTV’s new Ämmässuo compost plant in Espoo will be able to treat all the biowaste collected from the local households.
      If biowaste enters landfill among mixed waste, it starts smelling and producing landfill gas that contains methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
      In 2006, YTV collected some 3,000 tons of biological waste. The amount has been growing steadily.
     
In the Greater Helsinki area the sorting of biological waste from other waste is compulsory for residential buildings with at least ten apartments, as well as for any residential property with more than 50 kilos of biowaste per week.
      However, smaller buildings are also free to take part in sorting. The brown biowaste containers are emptied at least once a week.
      Provided that a residential building has a good compost bin in the yard, the complex does not have to take part in the biowaste collection of YTV. However, YTV has to be notified of such a house compost bin.
      The YTV campaign will be run as outdoor advertising at bus stops, and on the internet.
      Instructions for handling everyday domestic waste can be found on the YTV internet pages.


Links:
  Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV)

Helsingin Sanomat