The director of the Environmental Department of Laanemaa County, Mr Lembitu Tarang, looks worried about the waste oil coming from the ferries of West Estonia. Until now, it has been stored in a land hole in the municipality of Martna.
This project has been elaborated in co-operation with the Centre for Extension Studies, University of Turku and the counties of West Estonia in order to develop waste management and improve the prerequisites for tourism in the unique nature areas of West-Estonia. As a pilot project, it establishes a model for waste management in Estonia as a whole.
Estonian-Finnish cooperation
The project has been carried out in two phases in 1995 -1997. In the first phase the project area consisted of four counties in Estonia; Hiiumaa, Laanemaa, Polvamaa and Saaremaa, but in the second phase Polvamaa was not involved. 47 municipalities with about 120 000 inhabitants took part in the project (phase 1). The project has been financed by the Finnish and Estonian Ministries of the Environment, Finnish counties and municipalities as well as counties in Estonia and the Regional Council of Southwest Finland. Important additional partners are Keep the Archipelago Tidy Association from Finland and Keep the Estonian Sea Tidy Association. They have built waste disposal stations around the coastline and islands in Estonia.
Mapping the situation and awareness raising
The project started in autumn of 1995 with a seminar. After that, the municipal waste experts determined the amount of hazardous waste in each municipality and the estimated waste proportion in the coming years. The results of the chartings of hazardous waste were presented at the second seminar in the spring of 1996. As a result of the first phase, a leaflet on hazardous waste and waste management was published and distributed to every household, farmhouses, enterprises and different organisations in the project area. The leaflet was the first of its kind in Estonia.
Collection starting
The second phase started in January 1997 and will be finished in the summer of 1997. The main tasks of this phase are to plan the collection of hazardous phase, to train waste experts and to arrange a study visit to Finland to demonstrate to Estonian participants how a Finnish hazardous waste collection truck works in practise. Furthermore, there will be an extensive information campaign on hazardous waste in the project area.Through this project, investments to the infrastructure of hazardous waste management shall also have to take place. At this point, all the counties of this project have their own collection point for hazardous waste. In addition, Hiiumaa and Saaremaa have a compost field of hazardous waste.
Furthermore, this project has helped in achieving one important goal: local people have realized that hazardous waste must be collected because tourism is increasing on the islands and in the mainland of Estonia. This project has also been a model for hazardous waste management project financed by PHARE. And it is anticipated that the leaflet of this project will be published and distributed nationwide in Estonia next autumn.
For further information, please contact Mr Antti Karlin, fax +358-2-333 6331 or Ms Elvi Viira, fax +372-45-59854.
