Finland partnership launches river waste collection technology

Huhtamaki donated €600,000 to fund the development and piloting of a river waste collector, invented by Finnish cleantech start-up RiverRecycle. With Huhtamaki’s support, a prototype waste collector was built and tested in Finland. This was then transported to and assembled in Mumbai, where it is now operational and where it will be collecting waste from the Mithi River for the next 12 months.

Thomasine Kamerling, Executive Vice President Sustainability and Communications at Huhtamaki, said: “We believe in protecting food, people and the planet. We also believe that co-operation across the value chain with key stakeholders is needed to address global sustainability challenges, for example such as in this case marine plastics. If we want to drive systemic change, we not only need to support the development and commercialisation of innovation that can help stop waste from getting into the oceans, but we also need the monetisation of waste and incentivisation of local communities.”

Anssi Mikola, CEO and Founder of RiverRecycle, added: “When operating in a circular economy, co-operation among different players is fundamental to sustainability. Huhtamaki funding enabled us to complete two of the three parts of our journey of transforming plastic waste into a resource, with the positive engagement of affected communities. Huhtamaki’s commitment is an example of how collaboration helps solve global problems such as plastic waste pollution."

The Mithi River project is run by a global partnership between UNTIL (now known as UN Global Pulse), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, RiverRecycle and Earth5R, an India-based citizen-led environmental movement. The project also provides input to VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland on the floating waste and its seasonal variations that can be used to optimize clean-up operations and recycling processes for the future.

Huhtamaki’s ambition is to have 100 per cent of its products designed to be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2030. In India, where Huhtamaki has 16 units, the company has several recyclable flexible packaging structures in the market under its Huhtamaki blueloop concept.

The Mithi River project is one of three initiatives that Huhtamaki funded as part of its 100-year anniversary to address global sustainability challenges and build and learn from circular economy initiatives globally.