The project BALTIPLAST aims at prevention and reduction of plastic waste in the Baltic Sea Region, focusing on single use plastic reduction, improvements in plastic packaging and innovative collection and treatment systems at the municipality level.
Description
The project BALTIPLAST aims at the prevention and reduction of plastic waste in the Baltic Sea Region, focusing on single-use plastic reduction, improvements in plastic packaging and innovative collection and treatment systems at the municipality level.
A consortium of partners from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, will test concrete solutions at three levels of operation: Strategic and management; technological/technical; communication/behaviour change. The project involves some key actors in the plastic waste value chain, primarily municipalities in the participating countries, as well as SMEs and large enterprises operating in the field of waste management. NGOs and interest groups will be involved in the dissemination of results. The project contributes to the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, specifically to the Policy Area of Bioeconomy, dwelling on the responsible use of resources, changing mindsets and consumer behaviour.
UBC Sustainable Cities Commission is actively involved in the project, leading the transfer activities within the Work Package 3 to ensure the active dissemination of the project materials and outputs to the cities in the Baltic Sea Region. UBC SCC is also developing concrete deliverables, including the educational kit for addressing plastic waste to raise the capacities of employees in municipal and public service providers to deploy the solutions locally. The Commission is also collaborating with the Lead partner together with the rest of the partnership on the launch of the main project output – the BALTIPLAST Plastic Waste Management Platform (BPWMP).
Activities
Within the project consortium partners have designed and piloted the solutions to address plastic waste reduction: Guidelines on plastic prevention and reduction strategies for municipalities, Soft measures for single-use plastic reduction at municipal entities, schools and businesses and Technical/technological solutions for the collection and sorting of plastic.
The collected experiences, lessons learned and recommendations are developed into the BALTIPLAST Plastic Waste Management Platform which will act as a solution hub for plastic waste management, reduction and prevention. The platform details how municipalities can develop strategies, action plans and guidance documents to limit single-use plastic. It will also host an inventory tool designed for tracking and recording the amount of plastic waste and is accompanied by recommendations for reducing single-use plastic to aid the implementation of soft measures aiming to reduce plastic waste in municipal administration, schools, local businesses and households. Efficient handling of plastic waste is key in limiting plastic pollution, for this reason, recommendations for waste management facilities are also provided.
Funding
The project BALTIPLAST co-financed by Interreg Baltic Sea Region helps to drive the transition to a green and resilient Baltic Sea region.
Partnership
- Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- City of Helsinki (FI)
- City of Tallinn (EE)
- Kaunas city municipality (LT)
- Västerås municipality (SE)
- Valmiera Municipality Government (LV)
- Stockholm Environment Institute, Tallinn Centre (EE)
- Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) (EE)
- Kaunas University of Technology (LT)
- Daugavpils City Municipality (LV)
- Union of the Baltic Cities Sustainable Cities Commission (FI)
- Baltic Environmental Forum Germany (DE)
- Baltic Environmental Forum Latvia (LV)
- Keep Sweden Tidy (SE)
- Swedish Consumers Association (SE)
- Environmental Center for Administration and Technology (ECAT) (LT)
- Coalition Clean Baltic (SE)
- Plastic-Free City, KuBus e.V. (DE)
Project information
The project's main objective is to identify, test and deploy concrete solutions to handle and reduce the flow of plastic waste to the Baltic Sea, under the lenses of a circular economy. It will do so with the consortium of key actors in the plastic waste value chain, namely local authorities, universities and research institutions, associations and NGOs, as well as SMEs and large enterprises in the participating countries, that operate in the waste management field.