WasteLess Karelias

It further portrays the situation in one of our pilot villages and presents some of our achievements.

We in WasteLess Karelias project developed waste sorting in rural villages in North Karelia between 2018 and 2022. The villages improved their waste-related infrastructure and organised village evenings, events and clean-up days, where ways of promoting waste sorting were developed together with the villagers. Two target areas participated in the project: The Timanttikylät group of villages in Juuka, and Mekrijärvi in Ilomantsi.

Timanttikylät is a village of about 400 villagers and it’s located about 20-30 km from Juuka’s centre. WasteLess Karelias project arranged four open village evenings where the present state of waste management, improvement ideas, planning for a shared collection point, and recycling guidance were discussed. A waste company’s sorting advisor was present in all village evenings to answer questions of the villagers.

A waste collection point was built to the village with voluntary work and the project gave financial support for the construction expenses. In honor of the collection point an opening ceremony was held and a clean-up event was held as part of it. Paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic waste can be brought in the collection point in the yard of the village house. Regional mixed waste collection point was placed in connection with the collection point to reduce littering and misuse of the collection point.

In addition, four nearby households started a joined mixed waste bin (sekajätekimppa) together, placed in connection with the collection point, in its own lockable space. The villagers were encouraged to start joined waste bins (sekajätekimppa) and were guided in the use of the collection point by letters that were distributed to all households.

Mekrijärvi is a village of about 250 villagers and it’s located about 10 km north from Ilomantsi’s centre. The project arranged three open village evenings where the present state of waste management, improvement ideas, and recycling guidance were discussed

The villagers were encouraged to start joined waste bins (sekajätekimppa) by letters that were distributed to all households. Five households decided to start a joint waste bin together and the project financially supported for the building expenses of the waste collection point, the point was built with voluntary work.

Metal and glass collection bins were brought to the village as they were previously located on a not so easily accessible neighboring village. During the project the waste company renewed the regional collection point’s old bins into new locked deep containers, which reduced the littering at the point and prevented misuse.

Getting a larger recycling point to the village was negotiated with the waste company, but it wasn’t possible in the end due to the village not being in a central enough route for the waste transportation. Plastic collection was started during the project in Ilomantsi centre’s Rinki-point.

The impact of the measures implemented in the villages was measured through resident surveys at the beginning and end of the project. According to the results, waste sorting increased in the villages during the monitoring period. The share of households recycling waste rose from 89 per cent to 94 per cent and the volume of mixed waste decreased. At the end of the project, households in the Timanttikylät villages generated on average one plastic bag less of mixed waste per week than before.

The share of households’ recycling plastics grew significantly: previously, 43 per cent of respondents put plastics in mixed waste, and at the end of the project, only 24 per cent did so. In the villages, paper and cardboard no longer end up in mixed waste at all.

According to the respondents, the availability and accessibility of recycling points improved significantly in both sets of villages. At the beginning of the project, 59 per cent considered accessibility to be good, whereas at the end of the project, 90 per cent of the respondents thought so. The condition of the recycling points was also considered to be better than before and littering was still seen to be relatively low.

“The main thing was that we were able to get the residents of the village interested in the matter and to make promotion of recycling an important part of the daily life of the village. Getting a few key people who were passionate about the issue involved was crucial because they also acted as inspiration for other villagers. Events highlighting the importance of recycling were also essential to the success of the project,” says village developer Reeta Rönkkö from the Association for Rural Culture and Education.

According to the survey, the village's environmental awareness and interest in recycling increased during the project. An increasing number of villagers now feel that it is possible to reduce the amount of waste generated.

Consumers can significantly reduce their carbon footprint resulting from waste by properly sorting and recycling waste. The climate impact of the measures taken in the Timanttikylät villages was assessed by means of emissions calculation.

In 2021, an estimated 246 kg of cardboard packaging, 350 kg of metal, 480 kg of glass packaging and 96 kg of plastic packaging were collected through the Timanttikylät waste collection point for recovery.

The recycling of these quantities of materials reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 800 kg CO2e compared to what would have resulted from the combustion of the materials. This is equivalent to driving approximately 5440 km in a car with average emissions.

The estimation was conducted by comparing the material-specific emission data of waste combustion and recycling (  Fuelclassification  data was obtained from Statistic Finland and recycling emissions from  ecoinvent life cycle inventorydatabase  ).

In the Russian villages, WasteLess Karelias actions have been manifold. In relation to local waste management the key focus from the beginning has been set on assisting the local administrations in improving waste management and on providing villagers with access to functional and sustainable waste handling solutions.

At the outset of WasteLess Karelias none of the villages possessed a system of waste management that deserved to be described as sufficient. In other words: “waste management” consisted of the practice that collected waste from the villages to an open dump site next to the respective village. In Tolvuja, the dump site was located on an open field, in Naistenjärvi in the nearby forest/swamp and in Vedlozero in a former sand pit. Except for Vedlozero, there have not even existed waste containers in the villages. Proper infrastructure for mixed waste such as clearly demarcated collection points did not exist either in any of the villages nor were waste sorting facilities available.

Investing to infrastructure, training and engaging local people

Hence, improving infrastructure was a key priority. Based on intensive discussions and multiple meetings with local administrations and other target groups in the villages on the potential locations, requirements and other practicalities WasteLess Karelias was able to finance and install a series of collection points in all villages. Two new ’enclosed-type’ (i.e. with a roof and doors) collection points have been built in Naistenjärvi in 2019, four open-type’ (i.e. without a roof or doors) collection points have been built in Vedlozero in 2020-21 and three new collection points are under-construction in Tolvuja.

Supplemental to improving the basic infrastructure, the focus was on the integration of sorting solutions to the mixed waste collection. To this end WasteLess Karelias has initiated many activities that can be considered as preparatory steps to the introduction of sorting solutions for the local waste management systems.

First, waste sorting trainings have been organized at local schools, and small-scale sorting facilities have been delivered to the schools to increase the awareness and experience of school pupils in waste sorting. This included activities aimed to activate the sorting behavior in the pupils households.

Second, through discussion with local target groups and related activities such as information events and materials, waste sorting was promoted to local residents in general. As shown by the example of Vedlozero village, based on active involvement of local residents and project activities that promote local motivation and support bottom-up actions for a cleaner and more sustainable village, waste sorting can become a successful venture in the rural areas despite challenging circumstances. Yet, this requires orchestrated effort with at least a group of actively engaged locals in concert with local administration and supported by external expertise.

For WasteLess Karelias, continuous communication with all stakeholders and frequent visits to, and activities in all the sites has been the pathway to achieve local engagement.

Succesfull Ecotaxi and other activities in Vedlozero

Vedlozero can be seen as the most successful case in that regard. In order to attract villagers’ attention, the project had organized an ‘Ecotaxi’ event (mobile sorting station) to collect sorted waste for the first time in Vedlozero in a pilot trial. Information on the event was widely spread throughout the village community and during the event information on waste sorting and transport was provided to participants.

Following the successful pilot event, an initiative of local active residents, with the support of WasteLess Karelias, organized a grassroots sorting system based on few sorting containers (or rather ‘sorting bags’) and a storage shed to continue the collection of sorted waste in Vedlozero. The positive uptake of this initiative by locals have led to an increased need of sorting infrastructure and to provide equal access for most residents, WasteLess Karelias equipped all collection points in Vedlozero with sorting containers by winter 2022. Similar, containers for sorting of waste have been also delivered for the collection points in Näistenjärvi.

Another key challenge for rural and more remote places in relation to sorting of waste is the transport of the collected waste to the recycling facilities, predominantly in distant cities. The example of Vedlozero and potentially Näistenjärvi/Tolvuja have shown that the transportation problem is a key aspect requiring the collaboration of many actors. While it can be solved (in the most positive case) in cooperation with the local or regional waste management company there are also potentials to enroll local entrepreneurs (e.g. local shopkeepers) in the transport of cleanly sorted waste on their frequent trips to the nearby city (mostly empty transporter on the way to the city) should the authorities fail to take their responsibilities (which is predominantly the case in Russian countryside).

Activation of local initiative is the key

Generally, looking at the examples from all Russian WasteLess Karelias target villages in the abstinence of an inclusively organized institutional waste management system, the main enabler to drive the introduction of waste sorting solutions in the rural areas is the activation of local initiative.

In most places there are local residents who care about their village and the nature surrounding it. With certain support, such as the activities carried out by WasteLess Karelias project, it is possible to activate these residents and consequently to engage also local administrations and even regional level decision-makers to assist them in introducing more appropriate waste handling solutions including waste sorting. Naturally, transparent communication and collaboration with all involved stakeholders is a key requirement for success.

What other villages can learn from us?

Community involvement as well as active communication and community involvement are in a key role in developing local waste management, recycling and sorting practices.

Based on the experiences with our pilot villages, we compiled a 5-step WasteLess action plan for villages. Following these steps will help the villages to improve local waste management, recycling and sorting of waste.

1. Find out the state of waste management and littering in your village and how interested the community members are in improving the current state.
2. Contact those in charge of waste management in the village (e.g. municipality, waste company, organisations maintaining sorting stations).
3. Co-create solutions together with community members and stakeholders by organising village workshops and events. Invite everybody to join and communicate actively.
4. Involve local schools, go out and talk to children, students and teachers
5. Make sure the new practices become routines, adjust practices if needed and keep on developing and involving people. Celebrate together the achievements

At the beginning of the project, a school pre-survey was carried out in Finland and Russia. Based on this pre-survey, it can be said that waste-related environmental behavior seems to differ between Finnish and Russian students. Finnish students seem to recycle more than Russian students despite the sort of waste. Moreover, Russian students long more clean-up events than Finnish students to enhance village cleanliness. From the source of knowledge, Finnish students seem to get more knowledge from home than Russian students.

For both Finnish and Russian students, the school is the most important source of environmental knowledge.

The school workshops in Finland were targeted to enhance students’ knowledge and awareness of waste and recycling but also to create a concrete way to do something for the environment.

This concrete action was done in the form of trash art. The school workshops focused on two different types of waste: plastic and textile waste. Plastic waste targeted workshops focused on the water environment, and students made from plastic waste marine animals hung to an old fishing net. The textile waste art workshops utilized, in addition to textile waste, old bicycle wheels that were combined in the art pieces.

The school workshop structure was based on three steps:

• First, a pre-assignment was given. This pre-assignment was given a week before the workshop. In this assignment, students observed and photographed household waste amount for a day. Also, students’ brought trash from school for the latter stages of the workshop.

• Second, an info lesson was given to students. The WasteLess Karelias project persons held this info lesson while the teacher of students was also present. At the beginning of the info lessons, the pre-assignment findings were discussed. The structure of the lessons contained knowledge of waste, waste reduction, recycling, and many pictures and videos of waste and recycling and participatory elements to enhance learning.

• Third, a trash-art section took place. Students created art pieces from the trash they brought to school in this part. The art guidance was usually done by a teacher from the school based on their expertise. The length of the art section varied based on school resources. For the shortest, a lesson was used for creating the art, and for the longest, two and a half lessons were used to create the art. When the art was ready, it was displayed on the school premises. The displaying of the art pieces was done for two reasons. To enliven school premises and also to gain attraction to waste problem.

After the workshops, teachers were interviewed to get their perceptions of the workshops and abilities to carry out environmental education. Teachers felt that workshops were suitable and enabled them to have a waste-related part of the school day. The cross-curriculum approach was especially useful. Moreover, teachers clarified that carrying out environmental education is often challenging in everyday school life because of tight schedules.

In all Russian target villages local schools play a central role in the societal processes in the village. Therefore, WasteLess Karelias project has set much focus on active collaboration with local schools. In Näistenjärvi and Tolvuja local schools were even employed to pilot waste sorting practices prior to their role out into the community itself.

Activities with schools started in spring 2019 with collecting the students’ opinion on littering and waste handling practices through our pre-survey. This first engagement at schools was accompanied by training sessions on the basic skills of waste sorting including all classes. Following a half-day of lectures and trainings in each school, clean-ups in their villages were carried out and their previously acquired new knowledge was put to practice when sorting fractions of the collected waste.

Most of the participants were quite enthusiastic in cleaning their villages and in employing their sorting skills. Hence, after collecting several hundreds of kilograms of mixed and sorted waste in each village, the recyclable glass, metal and plastic was transported for recycling to Petrozavodsk.

To maintain student engagement with the topic and refine their sorting skills and their enthusiasm about proper waste management small containers for basic sorting (e.g. plastic bottles’ tops, batteries, small metal waste) have been given to the schools to practice waste sorting. This definitely paid off as every time we returned to the schools for one of our frequent visits the small containers were filled with neatly sorted waste.

Unfortunately, COVID19 did restrict many of our activities and due to various restrictions and technical limitations (e.g. weak internet infrastructure) it was impossible to work at Russian schools during much of the first two years of the COVID19 pandemic. However, WasteLess Karelias project returned in autumn 2021 to schools to continue the training of students in environmental education and additionally in relation to the new waste management and sorting possibilities installed by WasteLess Karelias to their villages. As with Finnish schools a strong trash-art component was integrated in the training programme as it has proven a good facilitator for students to increase their environmental awareness and rethink the relation between different products and their potential for further use, contrary to a “throw-away-attitude".

At that time WasteLess Karelias also provided all Russian school with larger (0,25 m3) containers for waste sorting and the ways the sorted waste is stored and how it is transported to recycling points was collaboratively agreed upon.

Unfortunately, the War in the Ukraine and the resulting termination of activities in Russia prevented us to finalize our fruitful activities with Russian schools. This meant that the post-survey to measure the progress in environmental awareness, and the final clean-ups at schools could not be carried out by the project. However, we are confident that the trainings provided, and the topics discussed with students and teachers in the project schools – waste sorting practices, methods of environmental education and awareness rising, problems of littering – will remain visible in the values and practices of the students and teachers that participated in project activities and therefore contribute to a cleaner environment at least in our WasteLess Karelias target villages, and possible beyond.

Since the project activities on the Russian side had not been suspended in Spring 2022, we decided to re-allocate project educational activities towards Ukrainian refugees that had been arriving to Joensuu since March 2022. To facilitate the integration of the Ukrainians to their new Finnish living environment we provided them with the basic information about the Finnish system of waste management and organized trainings of basic skills in waste sorting for both adults and kids.

In June 2022 we also organized a cultural event for Ukrainian families in cooperation with the local cultural center Siihtala, Teatteri Traktori, and North Karelia cinematographic society, as well as with the invaluable assistance of local Russian and Finnish volunteers. We screened the waste related movie Wall-e and run a number of follow-up trash-art workshops for kids. While the children were enjoying the workshops, adults got more practical lectures on waste management and waste sorting. Useful materials, such as sorting brochures and guidelines in Russian, biowaste bags and biodegradable kitchen washcloths had been provided by the local waste management company Puhas which was collaborating with WasteLess Karelias in this event.

Timanttikylät villages are exceptional rural villages as, in addition to energy waste, they separately collect packaging waste such as metal packaging and small metal waste, glass, cardboard, paper and plastic, at a collection point maintained by the village association. The costs of the recycling point are covered by voluntary work funds collected by the village association.

In rural areas like Juuka, resident activity in waste sorting is especially important. Waste management arrangements often have to be agreed upon themselves or the sorted waste is taken to a waste centre or take-back points even over long distances. On the other hand, in rural areas, for example, home composting is used extensively for the treatment of biowaste.

The investigation revealed that all plastic, glass, cardboard and metal waste sorted in Juuka is treated either in Finland or abroad.

• Plastics collected separately from Juuka, as well as from other parts of Finland, are mainly processed at the Riihimäki waste treatment plant. Recently, plastics have also been exported to Sweden and Germany, as Finland does not have enough capacity due to the rapid increase in plastic sorting. However, a new plant is planned to be built. Plastics are made into recycled raw materials or finished products, such as commercial recycled plastic bags and cleaning supplies.

• Glass packaging passes through the Kuopio terminal to glass processing plants in Forssa and Estonia. There, the glass is processed and delivered as a raw material to glass packaging plants. Despite long transport distances, glass recycling is more environmentally friendly than making new glass, and glass can be recycled indefinitely.

• Cardboard is transported to interim storage for baling, from where the bales are transported as raw material to the cardboard factory. Cardboard recycling plants are located in Varkaus and Pori, among other places. Recycled board is used to make corrugated board raw material, packaging board and packaging paper, saturating kraft paper and coreboard.

• The metal packaging and small metal waste are delivered to a crushing plant in Tornio, after which the material is a smeltable raw material for the steel industry. The quality of the metal does not deteriorate during recycling, so it can be recycled indefinitely.

Waste should be seen as a valuable resource and its value will increase in the future. For example, the need for fertilisers increases as virgin natural resources dwindle. The Finnish company Tracegrow utilises the metals in used batteries as a raw material for fertilisers.

In Finland, the industry already uses metal, waste oils and paper imported from abroad. For example, electronic waste contains a lot of valuable metals, and the ways and possibilities to use them are still being explored.

"Waste ends up being recovered when it is sorted – even from a small village far away from big city centres like Timanttikylät villages in Juuka. Waste is a valuable raw material and recycling has many positive environmental impacts. Although transport journeys can be long and cause CO  ₂   emissions, the use of waste as a raw material for new products is more environmentally beneficial than making them from natural resources and other primary raw materials," says researcher Anne Holma from SYKE.

There are dozens of recycling plants in Finland. The market affects the place where different waste fractions should be treated. Biowaste, for example, is heavy and has high transport costs and it is therefore handled near the place of origin. If only small amounts of waste are generated, it is more cost-effective to transport them further away for centralised treatment. Hazardous waste is treated very centrally as this type of waste requires a particular facility.

The recycling rate of a municipal waste, waste generated by households and services, should reach 55 per cent in EU countries by 2025 and 65 per cent by 2035. The recycling rate of municipal waste in Finland stood at 42 per cent in 2020. Since there is still a long way to go, all the work to make recycling and sorting more efficient is important.

Household waste refers to municipal waste produced by homes, such as energy and biowaste, cardboard, paper, glass, metal and plastic waste. Household waste is taken to a waste container outside (mixed/energy waste) or to a local collection point, waste station or, when returning beverage bottles and cans, a reverse vending machine at a grocery shop.

Hands-on work with waste material provided participants with new perspectives on how they themselves consume and on the effects of their own consumption.

In the student workshops at the School of Eastern Finland and the schools of Valtimo and Juuka, trash art was created from plastic, textiles and old bicycle rims. Before starting the workshops, lessons were held where students learned about the importance of separating waste properly and discussed their own habits in sorting waste. The students were also told how properly sorted waste can become raw material for new products. In the workshops, plastic trash was turned into aquatic animals, while bicycle rims and discarded textiles became impressive wall decorations. The finished art pieces were displayed in the school buildings so that everyone could admire them.

We also had workshops for adults. These workshops combined trash art with gardening, using things like broken furniture, metal trash and discarded textiles as materials. The participants turned metal trash into all kinds of art pieces ranging from chicken wire birds to bunnies made from pliers. In the textile sculpture course, discarded textiles and leftover paint became dragons and cats among other things. In the edible trash art garden, broken furniture and dishes were given a new purpose as containers for plants.

The participants created different art pieces with the guidance of artist artist (ITE-taiteiloja) Alpo Koivumäki.

The WasteLess Karelias project utilized various different art forms. Contents for children and families utilized theater and moving pictures in addition to hands-on practical work. Waste, recycling and more general nature-related matters were discussed in the workshops and the theater play organized by Teatteri-Traktori. During the COVID-19 restrictions, the play was brought to students remotely. After restrictions were lifted, the play was performed live at a "Lasten lauantai" event at Artfactory Siihtala.

The event also included a screening for children of the movie Wall-E, which tells the story of a waste collecting robot. Later in the evening, older participants were presented a screening of a waste-related horror-comedy movie.

The trash art events of the WasteLess Karelias project ended with a recycled fashion show at the closing event. Students of textiles and fashion at Riveria designed and manufactured outfits from recycled textiles and various other waste. The outfits were showcased as part of the Trash Art Festival at the market square of Joensuu. After the fashion show, the outfits were given their own exhibition room at Taitokortteli for a week.

WasteLess Karelias project arranged Trash Art Festival – an event for the whole family at Joensuu Market Square on June, 2022

The event featured a recycling fashion show by Riveria students and a science theater performance by Teatteri-Traktori. In the market area, visitors could get advice on sorting and recycling, as well as repairing their own bicycle. Visitors were also able to try dyeing of yarns with biowaste, answer a waste quiz or taste the loss food soup.

The event brought together a large and diverse group of recycling and circular economy players from the Joensuu area.

Product care is an easy way for everyone to fight the negative consequences of overconsumption. The stories we have collected highlight what motivates people to have caring relations with their products: willingness to care is associated with economic, practical, aesthetic, environmental and social reasons – and with product attachment.

The stories reveal what is worth caring for – and what is not. Poor product quality reduces the motivation to care and cheap prize of products makes people ignorant. Poorly functioning products are easily changed to new ones. Product care demands time and skills – or maintenance and repair services which do not exist any longer.

Product care stories is a group discussions method we have developed to collect narratives of how people actively engage with every day material flows. It is a method to share ideas for achieving more positive socio-technological futures.

In the 6 group discussions organised during the project, over 20 people shared stories of a range of different types of products they cherish and take care of including: tractor, bicycle, food mixer, biathlon rifle, dowry chest, closet, plastic hand basin, baptismal dress, sweatshirt, cardigan, winter coat, rock festival coat, tie, wrist watch, book, wooden bottle, turntable, cooling fan, cheese slicer and flower pot.

Product care is undervalued work, carried out in every home and at repair shops. Listen to the stories that people have shared with us. They make the ontological work to maintain and increase the value of products visible.

WasteLess Karelias project has gained significant media attention both in Finnish and Russian media. Especially regional newspapers and online media services have written articles about waste management and co-operation in the Karelian villages.

Here are some exaples of the media stories:

•  Cleaner outside, cleaner inside  / The Barents Observer (international online journal)
•  Semnasem.ru interregional online journal   (in Russian)
•  Karjala tulee entistä siistimmäksi  / Karjalan Sanomat (in Finnish)
•  Ecotaxi will collect sorted waste in Karelia  / Respublica (in Russian)
•  ”Kaikki viedään kuitenkin samaan paikkaan” – Lajittelumyytti murtuu  / Uusiouutiset (in Finnish)
•  Article about waste sorting in Vedlozero   / Stolitsa-na-Onego, regional web journal (in Russian)

The WasteLess Karelias project is lead by University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and carried out in collaboration with three partners: Association for Rural Culture and Education (MSL), Insitute of Economics of the Karelian Research Center (IoE) and the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE.

The project is funded by CBC programme. Karelia CBC is a cross-border cooperation programme creating an attractive region for people and business. Programme is financed by the European Union.

 WasteLess Karelias project page (UEF) 

University of Eastern Finland:

• Project coordinator Moritz Albrecht, tel +358 50 337 1783, moritz.albrecht@uef.fi
• Project manager Gleb Iarovoi, gleb.iarovoi@uef.fi

Association for Rural Culture and Education

• Village developer Reeta Rönkkö, reeta.ronkko@msl.fi

Finnish Environment Institute

• Senior Research Scientist Kati Pitkänen, tel +358 295 251 101,  kati.pitkanen@syke.fi