Regional stakeholder group meeting in Päijät-Häme
Circular economy group of Päijät-Häme met at Salpakierto waste management company’s premises on 13 November. The group is coordinated by the Regional Council of Päijät-Häme. It gathers a few times a year, and act also as a regional stakeholder group of the CEI BOOST project.
Representative of Salpakierto opened the meeting and presented their organization and new developments. There are many things going on in waste management due to changes in legislation which drives changes to separate collection obligation and waste transport. The utilization rate of municipal waste in Päijät-Häme is high 99,5%, but recycling rate was 51% in 2022. CEI BOOST project partners LAB University of Applied Sciences and Regional Council of Päijät-Häme showcased the Digital innovation and circular economy ecosystems analysis of Päijät-Häme. Aim of the analysis was to identify actors related to digitalization and circular economy, and to find out the current state of the region’s digitalization and circular economy. A presentation included the relevant points of the analysis; maturity of digitalization, circular economy and their combination, along with project themes of each sector. After the presentation the findings were discussed as follows. To know and identify all digital solutions that companies have e.g., in their production processes has appeared to be difficult. However, there are many good examples, e.g. waste management has different digital components and solutions and more are on the way. Also, University of Helsinki's Päijät-Häme campus is currently applying funding for digitalization of their PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates) to plastic research.
The CE group of Päijät-Häme members shared their current issues with circular economy. There are plenty of interesting projects in the region referring to circular economy themes such as reducing food waste and biowaste, CO2 capture, storage and utilization, nutrient recycling, textiles, sustainable commuting and so on. Other topics which were presented at the meeting were national circular economy green deal process, regional Green transition program, funding, Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) network news. Meeting of the group, sharing current news and learning from each other is crucial to take circular economy further in the region, and making it mainstream.