“Baltic Approaches to Handling Plastic Pollution under a Circular Economy Context- BALTIPLAST” Project

The project “Baltic Approaches to Handling Plastic Pollution under a Circular Economy Context” (BALTIPLAST) aims at the prevention and reduction of plastic waste in the Baltic Sea Region, focusing on single use plastic reduction, improvements in plastic packaging and innovative collection and treatment systems at the municipality level. A consortium of partners from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will test concrete solutions at three levels of operation: Strategic and management; technological/technical; communication & behavior change. The project involves some key actors in the plastic waste value chain, primarily municipalities in the participating countries, as well as SMEs and large enterprises operating in the field of waste management. NGOs and interest groups will also be involved, in the dissemination of results. BALTIPLAST contributes to EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, specifically to the Policy Area of Bio-economy, dwelling on responsible use of resources, changing mindsets and consumer behavior, through cross-sectorial approaches, by up-scaling waste to integrate it into a circular economy, by testing public procurement models and by integrating circular economy policies in the activities of the target groups. The project design is guided by co-creative innovation, through new schemes of collaboration in country clusters, as reflected in the project Group of Activities, further transferring them to a transnational level. Ultimately, BALTIPLAST may provide a long-term contribution to on-going efforts to reduce the plastic that enters the Baltic Sea Region.

Objectives and the partnership

The project BALTIPLAST aims to foster the prevention and reduction of plastic in the Baltic Sea Region, through a diverse and consolidated consortium with partners in Germany, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with the Union of Baltic Cities, based in Finland. The project´s main objective is to identify, test and deploy concrete solutions to handle and reduce the flow of plastic waste to the Baltic Sea, under the lenses of a circular economy. It will do so by establishing a consortium with the main some of the key actors in the plastic waste value chain, namely local authorities, universities and research institutions, associations, and NGOs, as well as SMEs and large enterprises in the participating countries, that operate in the waste management field.

The collaboration is based on three levels: solution and stakeholder logic with local authorities; technical and business level; and the consumer level. Various local authorities are partners in this consortium, which empowers them to address the solutions to their current problems. In order to have a comprehensive transfer of the solutions, various networks and associations are included in the consortium, since plastic waste has a direct connection with all of them. The universities will design the solutions in collaboration with local governments in the project countries, with inputs from NGOs and Associations. The solutions will be tested by the cities and in cooperation with NGOs and businesses. For maximizing the transnational transfer and upscaling of the solutions, the Union of Baltic Cities will use its extensive network of municipalities, hence maximizing the benefits of the project to the Baltic Sea Region.

Target Groups

1. Local public authorities
2. Interest groups
3. SMEs
4. Large enterprises
5. NGOs
6. Education organizations

Contact
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
Research and Transfer Centre “Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management”

Professor Walter Leal
Dr. Jelena Barbir
Andrea Dobri
E-mail: baltiplast@hamburg.de