Materiaalitori - Material matketplace

By project SYMBI

Published on 29 July 2022

Finland

About this good practice

Materiaalitori (Material marketplace) is a platform managed by the Finnish state owned company Motiva Ltd for exchange, sale and purchase of waste materials, side streams, by-products and residues. Materiaalitori is intended for the professional exchange of waste and production side streams from companies and organisations. Materiaalitori also allows searching for and offering related services, such as waste management and specialist services. Those working in the field can use Materiaalitori transparently and free of charge.

One of the main goals of the platform is to accelerate the transition towards circular economy by enhancing resource efficiency and utilisation of secondary raw materials. Materiaalitori also acts as a platform to accelerate industrial symbiosis.

A further aim is to create transparency in the use of the supplementary waste management service provided by municipalities, on which provisions are issued in the Waste Act, and indicating the lack of other service provision which is a prerequisite for obtaining the service.

The reformed Waste Act entering into force on 1 January 2020 requires those waste holders whose need for their municipality’s supplementary waste management services exceeds EUR 2,000 in value to use the Materiaalitori service. This requirement will apply to public waste holders, i.e. procurement units, as of 1 January 2021.

Resources needed

Materiaalitori is funded by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment and maintained by state owned company Motiva. Finnish Waste Act requires those waste holders whose need for their municipality’s supplementary waste management services exceeds EUR 2,000 in value to use the Materiaalitori service.

Evidence of success

The material marketplace has 1547 registered users, 1253 enterprises/organisations. The total number of listed announcements is 600 (2021).

Potential for learning or transfer

The Materiaalitori platform is nationally accessible by all organisations with a business ID. All regions in Finland can access it but there are still some regions that are not involved in the FISS operation (Finnish Industrial Symbiosis System). The FISS operation accelerates the industrial symbiosis schemes through top-down approach. The concept is fully transferrable to other EU countries as well. Materiaalitori is build on open-source software and interface. The tool can be programmed to exchange information with other similar platforms to bring other similar tools under the same platform.