Would it be possible to organise an event that would create no waste whatsoever?
Outi Ugas, head of the Finnish office of The Natural Step, has a vision.
“We want to create these kinds of readiness here in the Wholesale Quarter so that companies can come and experiment themselves,” she explains.
One such experiment was last summer’s Hackathon event. The aim of the event was to explore what kind of circular economy could be created within Helsinki.
The Wholesale Market (Tukkutori/Abattoir) alongside the Kalasatama district is ideal for these kinds of experiments, as it represents a microcosm of the city. Most of the businesses in the area are food and wholesale outlets, in addition to which there are food production plants, including both fish and meat processing plants, as well as restaurants.
Waste management in the area is mostly centralised, and each local business weighs their own waste. This means that precise information, right down to the kilo, is available about the waste that is generated. Perhaps the most important lesson from the two-day event, however, was that these statistics don’t really tell us anything about the waste itself.
“We are now looking for explanatory factors for the fluctuations in our waste statistics,” Ugas says.
“One big question that we ran into all the time was at which stage waste becomes waste. When I put something into the garbage, it becomes waste and therefore subject to completely differently legislation and ownership considerations. It is a small and technical issue, but interesting all the same,” Ugas adds.
The aim of the circular economy is not just to improve the world, but also to safeguard business growth and the satisfaction of local companies.
“If we reduce the amount of cardboard waste, then local businesses would spend less time processing this waste. So the time saved could be used more effectively.”
Text: Antti Pikkanen