Lakeuden Etappi operates an everyday circular economy in eight municipalities in South Ostrobothnia, Finland, and is known in its field as a trailblazer of recycling and waste management services and for the digitalising of such services. Our RE. concept offers customers the possibility for self-service at the recycling station 24/7 by using the RE-appi mobile app. Etappi promotes environmental responsibility by providing residents with multi-compartment waste containers that are emptied into a similarly designed waste truck, also with multiple compartments. This allows several types of waste to be transported at the same time, producing lower emissions.
What is Lakeuden Etappi?
Lakeuden Etappi Oy is co-owned by eight municipalities in South Ostrobothnia with a total of 134,000 inhabitants and is responsible for the practical organisation of waste management in these municipalities.
Our duties include collecting, transporting, treating and recovering waste from property-specific waste containers and household septic sludge tanks, as well as providing information and advice on waste management.
A modern everyday service point for the circular economy
Our modern RE. concept offers a new way of collecting of waste in a convenient and pleasant setting, including self-service 24/7 using the RE-appi mobile app.
Etappi’s RE-points offering this service are located in Seinäjoki and Lapua, and a third point is being built in Kurikka.
RE-points offer many ways of taking care of waste disposal, and you can dispose of household waste there also as self-service whenever is convenient for you, regardless of opening hours, by using the RE-appi mobile app. The staff are available during service hours and are happy to guide you.
RE-point and the RE-appi app in a nutshell
- Our RE-points are located in Seinäjoki and Lapua. A third RE-point will be completed in Kurikka in 2025.
- Why is it called a RE-point? The name comes from the word “recycling”. The prefix “re” comes from Latin and means “do again”.
- The way it works is that you sort your waste at home, bring it to RE-point and unload it at Tarha or the covered sorting shed known as Tuubi, following the sorting instructions.
- Self-service 24/7 using the RE-appi mobile app, which can be downloaded from an app store. To use the service, you need to enter your visit in the app in advance and also pay for it if your waste includes items that are subject to a fee. Once you are there, the app will guide you to the correct waste points, depending on what kind of waste you are dropping off.
- It couldn’t be easier: all you have to do is drive in and out following the marked lanes and stop to unload at the applicable waste points.
- The covered area offers a clean and comfortable place to drop off your waste, so that you won’t get wet even if it’s raining
Spot services bring waste sorting near you with lower emissions
Lakeuden Etappi’s Spot services are the starting point for the journey your waste makes towards recycling or other recovery. From here, it goes on to become secondary raw material, energy, biogas or soil conditioner granules.
The different sizes and types of waste containers and their combinations within Spot services are designed to serve the needs of properties of various sizes. Etappi’s container service delivers all the containers needed to all the households in the area free of charge.
In providing Spot services, we also take the environmental impact of waste collection into account, as well as affordable prices.
In residents’ home yards, the Spot services are reflected in different combinations of waste containers. A detached house can have either a container with two compartments for combustible waste and biowaste, or a container for only combustible waste if the residents compost their biowaste. A housing association can have both separate and compartmentalised waste containers. In small housing associations, packaging waste is collected in containers with four compartments.
Biogas plant recycles biowaste and sewage sludge
Our biogas plant is located at Lakeuden Etappi’s headquarters in Ilmajoki.
The materials treated at the plant include sewage sludge from municipal waste water treatment plants, biowaste from households and businesses and food waste from shops and restaurants.
Use of the biogas produced
We use the biogas we produce in the processes of the biogas plant and as energy for the plant’s own use. The biogas plant recovers biogas from the decomposition of organic matter such as food scraps and recycles the remaining nutrients in the waste by returning them into the soil in the form of a soil conditioner granules.
Ranu soil conditioner granules
RANU soil conditioner consists of nutrient-rich organic dry granules whose raw material is biowaste and sewage sludge. Ranu combines natural fertilisation with the recycling of nutrients in an ecological way.
Ranu is a high-quality, certified fertiliser that has been approved by the Finnish Food Authority for use as a soil improver.
Westenergy – waste-to-energy plant securing regional energy generation
The Westenergy waste-to-energy plant takes non-recyclable household waste that has been separated by the residents and that is suitable for incineration and turns it into energy. In other words, the plant recovers combustible waste as heat and electricity. The waste-to-energy plant secures regional energy production and replaces fossil fuels with more ecological alternatives.
The plant treats waste from 60 municipalities. The area served by the plant has a population of 500,000. In 2023, Westenenergy produced around 102 gigawatt hours of electricity and 385 gigawatt hours of district heating from around 188 000 tonnes of waste.
Recovering carbon dioxide in the future
In the future, we will recover and make use of the carbon dioxide in the waste, meaning that we will also capture the carbon in flue gas. We have a development project underway relating to this.
