While (grocery) shopping, customers face several choices - of produce and products – which are more or less ethical. There's the regular product, the cheap product, the luxurious more expensive product, the ethical product (organic or Fair Trade, or both) and the product manufactured nearby. Which one to choose? Let's take ”Case Christmas”. Christmas time is a holiday season when consumerism is almost unavoidable. Everything is consumed – food, presents and gift cards, festive clothes and decorations, and of course gift wrappings. Christmas and the tradition of exchanging presents place a huge demand on Earth's vital, limited resources. Christmas also depicts our generation, as consumers. But, it does not have to be so. Christmas can be a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family and friends without all that consumerism. Or at least, the money could be used for a cause! Small choices in a better direction, every now and then, can make a difference on a larger scale; choices such as buying less or buying better (ethical, organic or sturdier). After the present, another choice concerns gift wrappings – one could try e.g. not to pack their gifts at all, avoid individual wrappings, prefer recycled gift paper or even utilize newspaper. To provide alternative Christmas choices and raise awareness among consumers, an event ”Vihreä Joulu”, ”Green Christmas” was organized on 13th of November in Tampere Hall by TAMK’s Proakatemia entrepreneurship students. The idea, or motto, behind the happening is ”You're going to buy anyway, so choose better” - this is a great idea! The event Vihreä joulu was supported by Ruohonjuuri, Cabassi (bag, in the picture), and Ekona. In the event there were approximately 15 stalls which were full of recycled products, organic products or “green” cosmetics. (e.g. no synthetic ingredients in the D-vitamin tablets). Some of the products were recycled for example from bicycles' inner tires or silver spoons (see the picture, Retonki, SusannaN Design). The jewelry made from the tires was mesmerizingly beautiful and the silver spoon jewelry was jaw-droppingly delicate and luxurious. “Green Christmas” is an excellent pioneer idea. One way to ”lighten the load” is truly opting for better products! Yet even better is to opt for services such as a massage gift card, a movie ticket, or donate something to charitable organizations. The best choice is not to buy anything, and just enjoy the company of family and friends during the holidays. Anyhow the goal is to buy less, or at least buy better – when possible. Whether “better” means domestic or Fair Trade products, is up to You! Krista Haapamäki Construction sites are a very common view everywhere. There is always a demand for building new or renovating old ones. The waste materials that are created in these processes should always be recycled, yet this is not always done. On every construction site there should be separate collection points at least for wood, metal, plastics, glass, and hazardous waste. Finnish construction sites are required to follow the Finnish legislation on waste management called “jätelaki”, which states that the number one priority is to try to prevent creating waste in the first place. However, this is not always possible. Jätelaki also states that the waste materials should preferably be reused as raw materials and not converted into energy. Converting into energy in this case means burning and thus creating massive carbon emissions in order to get electricity. This legislation is very open to interpretation, and in the absence of clear statements in the law, it is tempting for companies to deal with the construction waste as they desire, which, especially in the case of smaller companies, is often the cheapest way possible. The cheapest way usually not being the most environmentally friendly option. I have worked on several different construction sites and for several different companies in the past. My own experiences of this topic vary a lot between different construction companies. I personally feel that bigger companies are more likely to have their construction waste recycling well planned, while smaller ones either lack resources or interest. Bigger construction companies also have contracts with companies that rent waste collectors. They also have contracts with raw material buyers, which make it profitable for them to recycle their construction waste. The way I see it is that bigger companies are also more vulnerable to possible reputation loss that could be caused by handling their waste inappropriately. In general, construction waste is dealt with better on construction sites that build new than it is in most renovation cases. Also, bigger companies are usually the ones building new, while smaller ones are the ones that have plenty of small renovation sites. The biggest issue that I have faced while working on this field of business was when I worked in a company that used a lot of different dangerous chemicals. Even though the chemical containers were labeled with “dangerous to environment” sign, they were thrown away with the regular waste, meaning that they would end up on landfills causing a serious threat to the environment. All in all, there is a lot of room for improvement in the construction waste recycling business in Finland. The most important thing would be to create laws that would force even the smallest companies to start paying attention to this situation, followed with appropriate monitoring that could be funded by the government. Also, government could lend support money to smaller companies in order to get them started with recycling their construction waste. This loan could then be paid back when the companies start to make profit from selling waste materials to buyers. Oskari Mäkelä Sources: http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/9590/Tuohiaro.Rami.pdf?sequence=2 The European Week for Waste Reduction is approaching! The program aims to raise awareness on waste reduction with the theme of three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. TAMK is participating this year by arranging the annual Stuff Exchange Days on Monday and Tuesday, 24th and 25th of November, and providing info about food waste in the lunch area. We challenge you, fellow student, to take part in minimizing waste by reducing, reusing and recycling! This year we encourage everyone to think especially about the food waste. In developed countries, food waste is a huge problem: it requires lots of energy, land and water to produce the food on your plate, and if it ends up in the bin it has all been for nothing. In Europe we waste food to the extent that by reducing it only by 15 %, we could feed the amount of people in Europe all over again. That’s something to think about! Therefore, please be mindful of your portion sizes and you’ll do the environment a favour! Continuing an item’s life instead of throwing it in the bin is the ultimate eco-deed: compared to new stuff being produced, it takes much less energy to repair what’s broken and continuing to use it for the purpose it was designed for. Also giving your stuff away to have a chance to fill someone else’s needs after you no longer need them is a great chance to reduce waste. Dig through your closets and check if you have unwanted things clogging up your space, and bring it to the Stuff exchange days! The world’s resources are not infinite either, and also for that reason we should always rather recycle the raw material of an item at the end of its life, than throw it in the landfill. Have you for example known, that in addition to recycling the normal paper, cardboard, glass and metal, you can take your worn out clothes that’s not possible to be reused anymore, to the fabric recycling bin at any H&M and they will use it as material for new fabric? (Disclaimer: this is not an H&M ad; I just encourage you to take use of their recycling program! You should still consider whether buying things from them is smart. ☻) In Tampere there’s also a currently ongoing plastic recycling test period where you can drop off your plastic at the recycling bins around the city. Unfortunately there are only eight of those points in the city, the closest one to TAMK being located in Tammelantori. It’s interesting to see how much you can actually reduce your waste by recycling even the plastic! I challenge you to try and guarantee that you no longer need to take the trash out very often! Drop by on Stuff exchange days in Lämpiö near Teiskontie entrance, on Monday and Tuesday 24th to 25th of November, and learn about more ways to reduce, reuse and recycle! You can also find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1512146352367123/?fref=ts Laura Puurunen References: European Week for Waste Reduction. http://www.ewwr.eu/en |
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May 2019
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