Pedestrians with umbrellas in Helsinki on Saturday, 14 October 2023. Residents of the Finnish capital region generated almost five per cent less waste in 2022 than in 2021, reveals Helsinki Region Environmental Services (HSY). (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)
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RESIDENTS of the Helsinki region are generating less waste.
Helsinki Region Environmental Services (HSY) has calculated that households in the capital region generated around 330,000 tonnes of waste in 2022, signalling a decline of almost 15,000 tonnes from the previous year.
The average resident thereby generated 263 kilos of waste, a drop of 14 kilos from 2021.
Nea Metsäranta, a project manager at HSY, said that amount of mixed municipal waste has decreased especially notably, to eight kilos per resident, after a spike observed during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It has now returned to the level of 2019,” she said in a press release on Monday.
At the same time, however, the recycling rate of households decreased by 0.4 percentage points from the previous years, as households in the region recycled 46 per cent of their waste. HSY is seeking to raise the rate to 60 per cent by 2025, an effort that will require particularly an increase in the sorting of biowaste.
The collection of biowaste will be expanded to cover all residential properties in the capital region and Kirkkonummi in 2023–2024, a fact that should help to raise the rate in the coming years, viewed Petri Kouvo, the director of waste management at HSY.
“A decline in the total amount of waste can momentarily slow down the rise in the recycling rate. For example, the amount of heavy paper waste has been declining nationwide already for years, also leading to a decline in the amount of material that ends up recycled,” he said. “In addition to the recycling rate, it is good to track other metrics, such as the total amount of waste and amount of mixed waste, which both decreased in 2022.”
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
