Waste Man­age­ment

The lead­ing idea in event san­i­ta­tion could be that a venue or event space must always be cleaned after use to cor­re­spond its state before the event. Leav­ing waste on pub­lic areas, like parks and forests, is also pro­hib­it­ed by law, and lit­ter­ing can be sub­ject to a fine. The bet­ter the event waste is sort­ed and recy­cled, the small­er is the car­bon foot­print of the waste man­age­ment.

Col­lect­ing com­bustible waste is a min­i­mum require­ment at audi­ence events. Events that only have one garbage bin type are becom­ing rare. If an event has serv­ing or food sales, bio waste must have a sep­a­rate gar­bade bin. It is rec­om­mend­able for events to orga­nize sort­ing for card­board, glass, met­al, paper, plas­tic, haz­ardous waste, bot­tles and cans as well.

When reg­is­ter­ing events of over 500 peo­ple, you must include a detailed plan on waste man­age­ment. All nec­es­sary event per­mits can be found on the City of Oulu e‑Permit sys­tem.

Do this

Begin­ners

Acquire the nec­es­sary waste con­tain­ers and instruct vis­i­tors in sort­ing the cor­rect way.

Clean the venue and its imme­di­ate sur­round­ings after the event.

Orga­nize smok­ing at the venue in such a way that cig­a­rette stubs do not end up in the soil.

Advanced

Place waste con­tain­ers with sort­ing instruc­tions on an easy-to-see loca­tion and where the audi­ence spend time and use ser­vices.

Mon­i­tor waste con­tain­ers’ fill­ing, and ensure that they are emp­tied reg­u­lar­ly.

Obey leg­is­lat­ed pro­hi­bi­tions on smok­ing, and clear­ly mark areas where smok­ing is per­mit­ted.

Next Lev­el

Require indi­vid­ual waste man­age­ment plans from cater­ing ser­vices and oth­er food ven­dors.

Hire staff for sort­ing points: spe­cial forces that instruct the audi­ence in sort­ing in a fun way.

Plan a cam­paign that rewards for sort­ing!

A cig­a­rette stub nev­er decom­pos­es. When cig­a­rette stubs, the most com­mon plas­tic lit­ter in the world, end up in nature, they dis­solve into small microplas­tic par­ti­cles that trans­port tox­ic chem­i­cals into the soil and the water­ways. Microplas­tics and harm­ful sub­stances accu­mu­late in the food chain, and through fish and crus­taceans they even­tu­al­ly end up in humans.

The effects of cam­paign­ing and mini ash­trays for cig­a­rette stub­bing were test­ed at Var­jo fes­ti­val.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Respon­si­ble Stub­bing Out
Mini Ash­trays out of Recy­cled Mate­ri­als

Respon­si­ble cig­a­rette stub­bing was also learned at Hässäkkäpäivät.

Sav­ing cig­a­rette butts in pock­et ash­trays

Two oth­er inno­va­tion test­ings involved effec­tive waste man­age­ment. Smart waste man­age­ment was test­ed at two dif­fer­ent-size music fes­ti­vals, at Qstock in Oulu and at Bät­tre Folk in Hailu­o­to.

Waste Com­po­si­tion Mea­sure­ment at Fes­ti­vals
Smart Recy­cling

More Infor­ma­tion & Tips

You can fol­low updates on waste man­age­ment leg­is­la­tion on the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment web­site

Oulu Region Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tions and Instruc­tions

Oulu Recy­cling Cen­tre Likke