RECO Baltic 21 Tech conference 2011 - RECO Baltic 21 Tech - Towards Sustainable Waste Management in the Baltic Sea Region

27 October 2011, Tallinn, Estonia

On 27 October 2011, some 80 professionals from across the Baltic Sea Region gathered in the always beautiful city of Tallinn, Estonia, for the Waste Management conference. This conference continued the tradition of the previous RECO project. Over the coming years the project RECO Baltic 21 Tech will organise further conferences on waste management.

The aims of the conference were:

To provide an overview of current developments in municipal waste management systems and on the status of waste management investment projects in the Baltic Sea Region;
To exchange knowledge and experience about best practices already adopted and planned for the management of municipal waste in the region;
To harmonise the approaches towards further waste management developments/investments.

During the day participants enjoyed listening to core advocate representatives from both public and private sectors on initiatives and recent development in the BSR. The day started with an overview of the existing situation and future trends. Prof. Rainer Stegmann (eng.), Hamburg University of Technology, Germany, and Catarina Östlund from the Swedish EPA presented the situation and the reasons why waste management has devel-oped in a certain way in Germany and Sweden. Then Peeter Eek, Head of the Waste Management Department, Estonian Ministry of Environment, gave an overview of the problems faced in Estonia followed by Dr. Harri Moora, SET-Tallinn, who presented the situation in the Baltic States. The afternoon was spent with more in-detail presentations on examples of waste management investment projects mainly focusing on biogas production from waste – both from food waste and landfills.