The collection of plastic waste, as requested by the residents, will begin in Jätkäsaari in autumn 2018. The preparation work for the collections will begin in August 2018, and the system will undergo testing in October and November. By early December, the area’s waste collection system will be ready to accept plastic waste.

A housing company can begin collecting plastic waste as soon as its new plastic collection point marked in yellow has been installed.The collection of plastic packaging waste will not incur any additional cost to housing companies.

The packages should be clean, as this affects the material’s recyclability and quality.

The plastic collected as waste will be utilised by Suomen Uusiomuovi Oy. In accordance with an agreement between Suomen Uusiomuovi Oy and Fortum, HSY will deliver the collected plastic packages to Fortum’s mechanical sorting facility in Riihimäki, where different types of plastic are separated to be reused as recycled material.

The biggest benefit from recycling is that manufacturing new plastic requires no virgin materials and the material from the collected plastic packages can be re-utilised. As much of the collected material as possible will be refined and used to manufacture recycled plastic products.

Currently, neither HSY’s waste management regulations nor the EU’s directive on waste require that plastic packaging waste be collected separately. However, within the next few years, the EU will begin to expect a higher recycling rate for these packages. Jätkäsaaren jätteen putkikeräys Oy and the City of Helsinki wish to assume modern climate responsibility and be the regional forerunners in collecting plastic waste, ahead of the legislative requirements.

We will be sending out a bulletin as well as an updated Quick Guide for the pipeline-based waste collection system to the area’s residents at a later date.