Trash Talk: Oulu’s Recy­cling Cul­ture

Mov­ing to Fin­land can open the door to many new experiences, and one of the more sur­pris­ing ones might be how seri­ous­ly recy­cling is tak­en.

Accord­ing to a Euro­stat report, Finns recy­cled an impres­sive 135 kilos of munic­i­pal waste per capi­ta in 2023.

In 2024, around 99 % of cans and glass bot­tles were returned through the country’s deposit sys­tem, known as the pant­ti scheme.

So, what does this mean for res­i­dents of Oulu? It can feel like nav­i­gat­ing a maze of infor­ma­tion hav­ing to fig­ure out which items go into which bins and choos­ing from sev­er­al options for where to dis­pose of your waste.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essen­tials: the dif­fer­ent recy­cling options avail­able, what goes where, and what hap­pens to your waste after it leaves your hands.

Typ­i­cal Waste Bins

When mov­ing into a res­i­dence in Oulu, there will usu­al­ly be an assort­ment of bins avail­able for you to choose from. You’ll also find recy­cling bins in pub­lic spaces too. The most typ­i­cal of which are list­ed below:

Plas­tic Pack­ag­ing – Muovipakkauk­set

What it includes:

• Plas­tic bot­tles, tubs, trays, and wrap­pers
• Plas­tic bags and film pack­ag­ing
• Sham­poo bot­tles, deter­gent con­tain­ers (rinsed)

What to avoid:

• Non-pack­ag­ing plas­tics (e.g. toys, buck­ets)
• Dirty or food-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed plas­tics

Glass Pack­ag­ing – Lasi­pakkauk­set

What it includes:

• Glass bot­tles and jars (clear or col­ored)
• Lids can be removed and recy­cled sep­a­rate­ly

What to avoid:

• Drink­ing glass­es, win­dow glass, ceram­ics, porce­lain
• Light bulbs

Met­al – Met­al­li

What it includes:

• Tin cans, alu­minum cans, foil
• Met­al lids and caps
• Emp­ty aerosol cans (non-haz­ardous)

What to avoid:

• Elec­tron­ics, bat­ter­ies, large met­al items

Card­board – Kar­ton­ki

What it includes:

• Cere­al box­es, milk and juice car­tons (rinsed)
• Paper bags, card­board pack­ag­ing
• Egg car­tons

What to avoid:

• Plas­tic-coat­ed card­board (unless spec­i­fied)
• Dirty piz­za box­es

Paper – Paperi

What it includes:

• News­pa­pers, mag­a­zines, envelopes
• Office paper, brochures

What to avoid:

• Wet or greasy paper
• Card­board or pack­ag­ing paper

Biowaste – Bio­jäte

What it includes:

• Food scraps, peels, cof­fee grounds and fil­ters
• Paper tow­els, nap­kins
• Gar­den waste (in small amounts)

What to avoid:

• Plas­tic bags (unless biodegrad­able and approved)
• Liq­uids, dia­pers, pet waste

Mixed Waste – Seka­jäte

What it includes:

• Items that don’t fit oth­er cat­e­gories
• Dia­pers, san­i­tary prod­ucts
• Bro­ken ceram­ics, vac­u­um clean­er bags

What to avoid:

• Recy­clables, haz­ardous waste, elec­tron­ics

Pant­ti: Deposit Refund Sys­tem

Anoth­er wide­ly used form of recy­cling in Fin­land is the pant­ti deposit refund sys­tem, as men­tioned ear­li­er. When you buy drinks in cans or plastic/glass bot­tles, a small deposit is added to the price. You get this mon­ey back when you return the emp­ty con­tain­ers to a recy­cling point, often locat­ed in gro­cery stores and super­mar­kets. The refund­ed amount can then be used toward your next pur­chase in the store where you returned the bot­tles, mak­ing the process both envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble and easy to inte­grate into every­day shop­ping. Not only does the sys­tem encour­age recy­cling, but it also helps keep pub­lic spaces clean­er since bot­tles and cans still hold val­ue, peo­ple are less like­ly to dis­card them care­less­ly.

Look for the pant­ti logo on your bot­tles to see if they are eli­gi­ble. The amounts dif­fer depend­ing on the size, often being 20c for small­er items and 40c for larg­er cans and bot­tles.

Addi­tion­al Waste or Recy­cling

There are oppor­tu­ni­ties to recy­cle oth­er items too, as Oulu has sev­er­al recy­cling cen­ters you can vis­it.

If your items are in good con­di­tion, they can be donat­ed for resale at a recy­cling cen­ter or at a char­i­ty store such as SPR Kont­ti. Details about sec­ond-hand stores in Oulu can be found in an ear­li­er IHO arti­cle: From Pre-Loved to Re-Loved: Explor­ing Oulu’s Sec­ond-Hand Scene

If you have items that are not in a good con­di­tion, or con­tain haz­ardous mate­r­i­al, they can be tak­en to Rusko Waste Man­age­ment Cen­tre.

Here are some of the items you can dis­pose of free of charge at the Oiva Sta­tion at the Rusko Waste Man­age­ment Cen­tre:

• All home elec­tron­ics and elec­tron­ic devices, includ­ing domes­tic appli­ances
• Light­ing units, lamp chains and lamps
• Haz­ardous domes­tic waste
• Some hard plas­tic items
• Untreat­ed wood
• Bat­ter­ies (includes vehi­cle and small device bat­ter­ies)
• Vehi­cle wheels, with or with­out rims
• Oth­er com­mon recy­clables

For up-to-date and detailed infor­ma­tion about the Rusko Waste Man­age­ment Cen­tre, check the Kier­tokaari web­site.

After the Bin: Where Oulu’s Waste Goes

Once waste is sort­ed and col­lect­ed in Oulu, here’s what hap­pens next:

• Recy­clable mate­ri­als (plas­tic, met­al, glass, card­board, and paper) are trans­port­ed to pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties where they are cleaned, sort­ed, and turned into raw mate­ri­als for new prod­ucts. This reduces the need for vir­gin resources and sup­ports Finland’s cir­cu­lar econ­o­my goals.
• Biowaste is col­lect­ed from prop­er­ties and sent to a bio­gas facil­i­ty, where it is con­vert­ed into renew­able ener­gy and com­post. This process helps reduce green­house gas emis­sions and pro­duces nutri­ent-rich soil prod­ucts.
• Pant­ti items (bot­tles and cans) returned through reverse vend­ing machines are sent to cen­tralised facil­i­ties for clean­ing and re-man­u­fac­tur­ing – often return­ing to store shelves in just a few weeks.
  Mixed waste, which can­not be recy­cled, is used for ener­gy recov­ery. At the Rusko Waste Treat­ment Cen­tre, non-recy­clable waste is incin­er­at­ed in a con­trolled envi­ron­ment to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty and dis­trict heat­ing for homes and busi­ness­es in the region.
• Haz­ardous waste and elec­tron­ics are han­dled sep­a­rate­ly at des­ig­nat­ed drop-off points like the Rusko Waste Man­age­ment Cen­tre, where they are safe­ly processed or dis­man­tled to recov­er valu­able mate­ri­als and pre­vent envi­ron­men­tal harm.
  This sys­tem ensures that as much waste as pos­si­ble is reused, recy­cled, or con­vert­ed into energy—minimizing land­fill use and max­i­miz­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty

Final Thoughts

Recy­cling in Oulu, and Fin­land as a whole, is more than just a habit; it’s a deeply root­ed part of every­day life that reflects the country’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty. While it may seem over­whelm­ing at first, under­stand­ing the sys­tem and know­ing where your waste goes can make a big dif­fer­ence. With clear sort­ing guide­lines, con­ve­nient return schemes like pant­ti, and acces­si­ble recy­cling cen­ters, doing your part becomes sec­ond nature.

Whether you’re a new­com­er or a long-time res­i­dent, embrac­ing Oulu’s recy­cling cul­ture is a sim­ple yet pow­er­ful way to con­tribute to a clean­er, green­er future.

Text by: Sophie Platt