Webinar: Innovations and progressive strategies in waste collection in public spaces and events

For our first webinar of 2022 we were joined by Marit Schulstok, Head of Circular Economy at Odd Football and Synnøve Fagerhaug Dalen, Plastic Coordinator at the Department for Public Spaces in Oslo Municipality.

Ms Schulstock presented the audience with the circular economy, recycling ambitions and zero emission strategies in Odd Football Club, the oldest football club in Norway. It is also Norway’s most environmentally friendly club and among Europe’s greenest and is very innovative in how it is organised and run. They have developed systems for developing talents from the region of Telemark where they are based and use modern training systems for continuous improvement. The Club cares about social responsibility and runs various projects with the aim to bring the community together and integrate.

Among their projects is Skagerak Energy Lab, where rooftop solar panels installed at the stadium’s roof produce 660,000 kW annually. Schools are invited to learn more about renewable energy and solar panels.

Odd Football Club also aims to prevent microplastics from granules in the astroturf being released into the environment by using drain gates and are working with a regional factory to test olive kernels on the track instead. All cars are electric and soon there will be charging station outside the stadium.

They work closely with the local waste management company and have different systems for the staff and the audience. For the audience, everything sold at the kiosks can go into one of three sorting bins: food, paper/cardboard and plastic bottles. Their aim is to make recycling as easy as possible. For staff, there are 5-8 different types of waste and all football club employees and the players are trained to sort accordingly.

While aiming to be a testlab for new technologies on waste management, currently Odd Football club is working in cooperation with Cycled to make the sorting of waste more fun. The Cycled system consists of a Smart Bin that connects to an app and rewards people for using the Smart Bin correctly. The system was tested with plastic bottles and snuff boxes, the latter being a waste item that didn’t have a system for correct disposal. Experience showed that people tend to throw more waste on the ground when the club has lost a match. The reward system of the Cycled Smart Bin aims to encourage people to sort and recycle regardless of the match result.

Ms Fagerhaug Dalen from the Department for Public Spaces in Oslo Municipality, discussed waste collection in public spaces to reduce plastic pollution in the Oslo Fjord. Oslo is a coastal city with a population of 690,000 and is surrounded by the Oslo Fjord.

Oslo Municipality began working on a holistic action plan in 2019 to reduce plastic pollution in the Oslo fjord which consists of 4 main areas with 48 actions. One of the main areas presented, focuses on cleaning up and managing plastic waste.

Ordinary waste containers are overflown after big events and this waste easily ends up in the rivers and fjords. To tackle this issue, two pilot projects are being carried out.

In one, smart waste containers are being used. The container is smart in the sense that it is closed, so birds and people cannot go through it and it has a sensor that sends a notification when full. This way the municipality can plan more effectively when the containers need to be emptied.

In the second pilot, the problem of cigarette butts, the biggest littering problem by citizens, was addressed. People are not aware that the filter consists of 95% plastic, a big marine pollution problem. Surveys showed that people didn’t want to throw cigarette butts in the ordinary bins due to fears of starting a fire. Bins in the form of a ballot box where installed with a campaign to raise awareness among citizens with the question “Who will keep my City clean?”. By throwing the cigarette butt in the bin, citizens vote they will keep the city clean.

Oslo City aims to be a test bed for new technology solutions. The “Oslodrone” pilot project collects floating waste from the harbour, currently it is controlled through an app but the goal is to make it fully autonomous.  Another pilot project, the “Trash Trawl”, collects waste from the river before it enters the fjord.

Collaboration was stressed as they key to reaching Oslo municipality’s goals. Using networks to come up with new ideas for Oslo to test, the 2030 programme by StartupLab connects partners with climate issues and startups with innovative solutions. A lot of the solutions tested have been found through different networks.

The Circular Based Waste Management project is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

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