Helsinki Region Environmental Services (HSY) is going to play a central role in improving the material and energy efficiency of the Helsinki metropolitan area.

Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority (HSY) is a municipal actor producing waste management, water treatment and water distribution services for over one million inhabitants in the Helsinki region, Finland. HSY also produces and provides information regarding land use, population statistics and air quality for residents and decision makers. HSY organises waste management for residential properties and the public administration, and supplies high quality drinking water for inhabitants. Air quality is currently monitored at 11 different sites while the monitoring network continues to be expanded and developed further. In addition to Helsinki, HSY has three additional member cities located nearby: Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen. Currently, there are some 700 employees at HSY with an annual turnover of around €350m and €120m annual investments make HSY a significant regional supplier.

HSY was established in 2010 through a merger of the four member cities’ waterworks, waste management services and regional and environmental information services provided by the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council.

The population of the Helsinki Metropolitan Capital Region is about 1.1 million.1 The total amount of four million tonnes of waste was generated in the region in 2014,2 65% of which was due to civil engineering. A significant amount of soil is also being generated at several construction projects which are currently underway. A few examples include the extension of the Helsinki subway, new residential areas, and a brand new wastewater treatment plant of HSY. The plant, when introduced in 2020, will undoubtedly display the best purification performance in the Baltic Sea region while its energy efficiency will be one of the highest in Europe.

According to a recently published study by the European Commission,3 Helsinki is one of the best performers among European capitals in separate waste collection. In its strategic policy, Strategy 2020, HSY pursues an active role in the improvement of the state of environment as well as in regional material and energy efficiency. One of HSY’s objectives is to be an innovative forerunner, and an active and reliable co-operation partner in its fields.

HSY recognises its responsibility as the most prominent public environmental body in Finland, and has set strategy-based environmental indicators which are regularly monitored. HSY also actively contributes to environmental objectives in various forums and collective strategies such as the implementation of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Climate Strategy 2030, and the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.

Wastes to resources

HSY is responsible for organising waste management for residential properties and the public administration. Duties of HSY as an operator include, e.g. transport and treatment services for waste generated by households, public services, private educational institutes, and healthcare organisations, whereas waste management of commercial actors is mainly organised by private companies.

HSY also acts as an authority on municipal waste management. In this role, HSY formulates the waste management regulations, according to which source separation and collection of biowaste, metal, glass, paper and cardboard is implemented at residential properties. Biowaste as well as cardboard packages are source separated at properties with at least ten apartments, while bigger properties (20 or more apartments) also include metal and glass packages collection. The waste management regulations are based on the national waste law which, in turn, rests on the waste directive.

In addition to the waste regulation-based source separation for properties, recycling is promoted through a network of waste sorting stations and regional collection points. Furthermore, in Finland there is a very efficient deposit refund system for bottles and aluminium cans.

Annually, HSY collects about 200,000 tonnes of mixed solid waste (MSW) from households and public organisations. MSW is transported to a new waste-to-energy plant operated and owned by Vantaa Energy Ltd. The plant was introduced in September 2014. Through the plant, all MSW, from which recyclable wastes have been separated as described above, from households and the services is utilised in energy production. Only about 10% of MSW is landfilled. The landfill is located in Ämmässuo Waste Treatment Centre at the border of Espoo and Kauniainen.

The main operations of the waste treatment centre include treatment of source separated biowaste, treatment of ash and slag from the waste-to-energy plant, collection and utilisation of landfill gases, treatment of contaminated soil as well as landfill treatment and final disposal. One waste sorting station is also located in the area. Ämmässuo Waste Treatment Centre is going through a transition into a resource efficient eco-industrial park. The Ekomo project was launched in 2015, and will be a centre of operations based on material recycling where companies can work in close co-operation with HSY and other businesses operating in the area. The objective is to make Ekomo into an internationally acknowledged showcase of industrial symbiosis based on the infrastructure, platforms and material flows provided by the public sector. The first co-operation projects have already been launched.

In addition to MSW, HSY collects about 50,000 tonnes of source separated biowaste. Biowaste is transported to the waste treatment centre as well, for treatment in a brand new process combining traditional composting and anaerobic decaying technologies. Treatment of HSY’s biowaste is based on the partial flow digestion process. The most suitable parts of the biowaste are selected and directed to each treatment process. Thanks to the biogas production, the part-stream dry digestion technique is ecologically a more sustainable treatment than composting alone. Through the biowaste treatment, energy from biowaste is also efficiently recovered.

Waste transports are selected through competitive tendering for each collection area at intervals of five years. Waste is collected in practice by contractors. The emptying of waste containers at the properties can be supervised in real time, which together with an incentive system created for the contractors has enabled very high reliability of the waste transport service.

HSY has created a network of waste sorting stations, where inhabitants and small enterprises are allowed to bring waste unsuitable for conventional MSW collection at the properties. Such waste can include, e.g. furniture and big metal waste as well as garden waste, hazardous waste, and, for example, electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE). About half of the material received at the stations ends up in recycling. There are five waste sorting stations today and new stations will appear in the future. The newest one was opened in September 2015 in Vantaa.

There are regional collection points distributed throughout the region which so far have been operated by HSY. In the future, however, HSY will work in close co-operation with Finnish Packaging Recycling RINKI Ltd, which represents the producers of glass, metal, cartons, and plastic packages as, along with the new decree on packaging and packaging waste, the responsibility concerning the collection and recycling of domestic packaging waste is transferred to the producers. The collection of plastic has been started at the collection points this year, and plastic collection will also be piloted at selected residential buildings during 2016.

Renewable energy producer

Considering its fields of operation, it is not surprising that HSY is a significant regional energy consumer. HSY’s energy consumption is currently approximately 200GWh, of which over half is due to electricity, consumed by water and wastewater treatment, and waste treatment processes. Vehicles, in contrast, are responsible for less than 1% of the total energy consumption. Besides consumption, HSY also produces a significant amount of renewable energy, mostly based on biogas. HSY aims to be completely energy self-sufficient by 2017. HSY also contributes to energy efficiency and has joined municipalities’ energy efficiency agreement.

At the waste treatment centre, landfill gas is recovered at a gas power plant. The plant, introduced in 2010, is able to utilise all gas collected from the landfill areas which are no longer used for landfilling MSW. Currently, the amount of collected methane is about 2,000m3/h, and will decrease during the next decades as the decomposition of waste progresses. Methane formation at the more recently used landfill area is plotted in Fig. 1. The plant is one of the largest utilisation plants of landfill gas in Europe, generating 15MW of electric power. This corresponds to the electricity need of ca. 8,000 detached houses. In addition to this, the waste treatment centre produces heat mostly for its own purposes.

Due to the gas power plant, the area is self-sufficient in its energy production, and a great deal of produced electric power is sold to the national grid. The landfill gas collection system and the power plant also significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The plant has a recovery system of exhaust gases, i.e. the ORC process (Organic Rankine Cycle). The process is able to utilise exhaust gases of the power plant for additional electricity production. In 2012, thanks to the high technological level of the plant, reduction of landfill emissions and beneficial economic effects, HSY conquered the Energy Globe Award national category and also ranked high in the international comparison.

Significant investments

HSY is also a prominent actor when it comes to investments made in the public sector with its €120m investments in 2014. HSY is to implement its investments increasingly through innovative public procurement procedures. In recent years, HSY has networked strongly both with domestic and European co-operation partners. HSY is a member in ICLEI (the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) and Procura+, and co-operates through its pilot in Water PiPP (Water Public Innovation Procurement Policies) project. In Finland, HSY co-operates with several partners such as Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, from which HSY gets funding for its strategic project Resource Wise Helsinki Region. One of the basic ideas of the project is to support the development of Ekomo by networking with companies and launching pilots with them. For SMEs especially, HSY is considered an important reference that could boost their entrance to domestic and international markets. As a public actor HSY can provide companies with innovation and development platforms, located in real operational environments (such as Ekomo). Companies can then pilot their technologies on the platforms and successful pilot co-operation can result in purchases later.

Research, development and innovation projects

HSY actively implements various R&D projects in all of its fields and is a partner in several domestic and European co-operation projects. HSY implements innovative forms of co-operation including hackathons and assignments to university student teams. There are several projects currently underway covering, e.g. biomass, ashes and slag, energy efficiency and nutrient recovery.

Some of the projects, such as studies regarding the composition of MSW, are repeated at regular intervals. MSW composition studies give information about its utilisation potential, and can be used to promote waste prevention or when new treatment processes are designed. The previous MSW composition study was carried out in September 2015, the same year in which HSY created an LCA model regarding the biowaste treatment process at the waste treatment centre. Using the model, it is possible to examine the environmental effects of the process parameters. The information can be utilised in process optimisation.

HSY has monitored the decomposition processes in the landfill structures since 2006. In these studies, temperature, the formation of methane (Fig. 1) and its recovery rate, leachate properties such as nitrogen, chloride and sulfate contents, BOD7/COD, water balance etc. are monitored. The results give information about the activity of decomposition as well as proper functioning and safety of the landfill structure.

As an example of completed co-operation projects, the Julia 2030 project, partially funded by the European Union LIFE+ programme, established a basis for Helsinki region joint climate work in 2009-2011. Another project, From Waste to Traffic Fuel (W-Fuel), examined the possibilities of promoting biogas production and use as transport fuel. The W-Fuel project was funded by the Central Baltic INTERREG IVA Programme.

References

1. Statistical Yearbook of Helsinki 2015. Helsinki Region Infoshare. Available at: www.hri.fi/en
2. Waste Flows of Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority. Available at: http://www.pksjatevirrat.fi
3. Assessment of separate collection schemes in the 28 capitals of the EU. European Commission. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/studies/index.html

Dr Petri Kouvo
Director, Waste Management

Dr Kimmo Koivunen
Development Engineer, Project Manager

HSY
+358 9 1561 2101
kimmo.koivunen@hsy.fi
www.hsy.fi/en

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