Residents of the City of Lahti in Southern Finland live close to nature. More than one in two live less than 300 metres from a quiet area. In Lahti, an area is defined as quiet when there are mainly natural sounds and no traffic noise, for example. Quiet places in Lahti include the extensive outdoor areas of Salpausselkä ridge system, many parks, and protected natural areas. www.lahti.fi Inspired by the country’s highly effective deposit system for beverage containers, the Finnish city is piloting an incentive-based system for recycling textiles. Finns recycle up to 97% of aluminum cans, will a small reward inspire them to sort and recycle their old fabrics? The average European throws away 11kg of textiles every year*. Around the world, a truckload of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every single second. Separate collection of textile waste is set to be rolled out across the EU by 2025, but to change our bad textile habits, a lot of work is needed. Lahti’s textile deposit hopes to inspire a change in consumer behavior. “As a pioneer in urban environmentalism, Lahti has set a goal of being a waste free city by 2050. The textile deposit is a great example of an everyday innovation that directly aims to minimize the amount of waste and showcases the potential of discarded textiles as a raw material for industries and design,” says Communications Director Veera Hämäläinen from the City of Lahti. New Waste Act promotes circularity Finland took a step towards a circular economy for textiles at the beginning of the year, as a new law requiring cities and municipalities to make separate collection bins for textile waste available to all Finns came into effect. The separate collection of textile waste makes it possible for discarded clothes and household textiles to be reused as recycled fiber. “Our future depends on a circular economy, but it can’t just be the consumers’ responsibility to take care of recycling. With this pilot we want to ask what countries, cities and companies can do to help make recycling easier and more attractive to people. Deposits have worked well before, maybe there could be one for textiles in the future”, says Kimmo Rinne, Development Manager at Salpakierto, a municipal company that handles waste management in the Lahti Region. The textile Deposit asks if an incentive can inspire locals to recycle The pilot on a textile deposit aims to investigate if a citywide reward system can incentivise locals to recycle their textiles. At the pilot stage, Lahti residents can exchange a bagful of textiles for vouchers for local services, such as cafes or passes to a local pool. Initially, the pilot will run during the first weeks of June. Cities have a major role in making recycling easy for people. As a leading environmental city, Lahti wants to be in the forefront of leading the conversation on how cities can lead the change into a more sustainable lifestyle. The City of Lahti is also launching a national design competition that aims to find new and creative uses for discarded textiles. The competition runs from now to 13 August 2023. With the design competition Lahti wants to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of circular economy. The competition is organized in collaboration with the Sustainable Lahti Foundation, LAB University of Applied Sciences and Salpakierto. The textiles collected in Lahti will be processed into recycled fiber at Finland’s largest textile processing facility in Paimio. In the spirit of circular economy, the recovered fiber can be used in the production of new products, such as thread, insulation materials and acoustic panels. For the Silo, Veera Hämäläinen. *EU Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_22_2015 Lahti Lahti tackles future challenges together with residents, companies and the educational sector. A sustainable future calls for action, which is why Lahti will achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. As the leading environmental city in Finland, we offer our citizens everyday life that is both smooth and sustainable. |
Tag Archives: EU
Canada Ranks 2 In Biggest Decrease In Car Production
The research by GoShorty looked at worldwide car production figures from previous years, the number of people employed in the automotive industry, and other factors to reveal which countries produce the most and least commercial vehicles in the world.
Countries with the biggest decreases in car production:
Rank | Country | Cars Produced | Commercial Vehicles Produced | Total Produced 2021 | % change variation2020/2021 |
1 | Slovenia | 95,797 | – | 95,797 | -32% |
2 | Canada | 288,235 | 826,767 | 1,115,002 | -19% |
3 | Uzbekistan | 236,667 | 4,982 | 241,649 | -15% |
4 | Germany | 3,096,165 | 212,527 | 3,308,692 | -12% |
5 | Serbia | 21,109 | 154 | 21,263 | -9% |
6 | Spain | 1,662,174 | 435,959 | 2,098,133 | -8% |
7 | United Kingdom | 859,575 | 72,913 | 932,488 | -6% |
8 | Romania | 420,755 | – | 420,755 | -4% |
9 | Czech Republic | 1,105,223 | 6,209 | 1,111,432 | -4% |
10 | Hungary | 394,302 | – | 394,302 | -3% |
Slovenia’s motor vehicle production was reported at 95,797 units in Dec 2021. This records a decrease from the previous number of 141,714 units for Dec 2020. Global car manufacturers like Renault have made plans to cut production in the country. Renault has cut production in its Revoz Slovenia unit and reduced its staff by 350 people.
Canada had the second biggest decrease in car production in 2021 compared to the previous year, a decrease in production of -19%. The low production numbers, down from 1.4 million in 2020 and close to two million in 2019, came as the global auto sector was hit by a shortage of semiconductor chips caused by pandemic-related production issues and a surge in demand for electronics.
Uzbekistan had the third biggest decrease in car production in 2021 compared to the previous year, a decrease in production of -15%. In 2021, Uzbekistan produced 236,667 passenger cars. That means that compared to 2020, production decreased by 15%. Despite the reduction in production, Uzbekistan increased the export of cars by more than a third.
The countries with the highest increases in car production:
Rank | Country | Cars Produced | Commercial Vehicles Produced | Total Produced 2021 | % change variation2020/2021 |
1 | Argentina | 184,106 | 250,647 | 434,753 | 69% |
2 | Indonesia | 889,756 | 232,211 | 1,121,967 | 63% |
3 | India | 3,631,095 | 768,017 | 4,399,112 | 30% |
4 | Kazakhstan | 80,679 | 11,738 | 92,417 | 24% |
5 | Morocco | 338,339 | 64,668 | 403,007 | 23% |
6 | Thailand | 594,690 | 1,091,015 | 1,685,705 | 18% |
7 | South Africa | 239,267 | 259,820 | 499,087 | 12% |
7 | Brazil | 1,707,851 | 540,402 | 2,248,253 | 12% |
9 | Portugal | 229,221 | 60,733 | 289,954 | 10% |
10 | Austria | 124,700 | 12,000 | 136,700 | 9% |
Argentina saw the highest percentage increase in car manufacturing in 2021 compared to 2020, at a rate of 69%. Argentina’s motor vehicle production was reported at 434,753 units in Dec 2021. This records an increase from the previous number of 257,187 units for Dec 2020. This year, Argentina’s Senate has approved a bill to promote the automotive industry. The initiative was spearheaded and supported by IndustriALL affiliates in the country.
Indonesia had the second-highest increase in car production in 2021 compared to 2020, at an increase of 63%. As well as being the fourth most populous country in the world,
India was the country that witnessed the third-highest increase in car production in 2021 compared to the previous year, at an increase of 30%. India’s automotive sector is benefiting from a host of improvements, which include global supply-chain rebalancing and government incentives to increase exports.
Methodology:
We started by taking the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers’ 2021 PRODUCTION STATISTICS to get World Motor Vehicle Production figures, to find the total number of commercial vehicles and car production for each country. This data is accurate as of 01/11/2022.
Ukraine and Russia were omitted due to the ongoing conflict between the two countries.
We ranked our countries based on their total production of both commercial vehicles and cars in 2021. We were also able to rank these countries based on their % change in variation between the years of 2020/2021 to find which countries had an increase in the number of produced cars in recent years.
We used ACEA’s Share of direct automotive employment in the EU, by country, to find the total share of direct automotive employment in total manufacturing for each of the 27 member states of the European Union in 2020. We were able to rank each country by the share of automotive employment. This data is accurate as of 01/11/2022.
Further findings:
- China is the world’s biggest manufacturer of cars – it produced the most cars and commercial vehicles in 2021, with a total of 26 million units manufactured.
- Egypt had the second lowest number of vehicles manufactured in 2021, with a total of 23,754 commercial vehicles and cars produced annually.
- Slovakia has the highest share of automotive employment in Europe – it accounts for 16.2% of employment in the country.
Digital Bus Stops Replacing Paper Timetables In Australia
Catching a bus in Sydney just got a whole lot smarter, thanks to the new digital bus stops from Mercury Innovation and Visionect. These intelligent signs run on solar power and have been developed on energy-saving electronic paper technology to ease the daily commute in the bustling Australian metropolis.
eStops New digital bus stops have been installed around Sydney’s Town Hall, replacing traditional bus stop paper timetables. Dubbed ‘eStops’ and developed on electronic paper, the displays have been developed with the commuter in mind, making access to travelling information and emergency notifications easier than ever before.
The digital stops provide real-time bus arrivals, as well as capacity information, service notifications and any other relevant commuter information right at the stop.
Best of all, each eStop is solar-powered, running on the plentiful Australian sunshine, a natural resource that Sydney has in abundance.
This makes the display not only simple to install, but also completely independent from the power grid, making it accessible to even the most remote of areas. Transport for NSW can now communicate critical notifications at exactly the right moment, keeping passengers up to date and ensuring accurate information is delivered at the point of action, no matter your location.
Nowhere is this more crucial than in Sydney—one of the busiest cities in the world, the metropolis is host to a variety of special events, such as the upcoming Mardi Gras Parade, with streets closed off and normal city flows disturbed.
The new eStop displays allow service disruption information about such events to be communicated to the public in real-time, before and during the event, allowing for efficient interaction with bus commuters, increasing the service experience for passengers and providing an effective management system for the city.
Not only this, in cases of emergency, the eStop can provide crucial emergency information to not only the bus ridership, but Sydneyites in general, displaying notifications even during blackouts, when other digital displays fail.
Based on electronic paper technology, they eStops have been designed and manufactured by Australian engineering company Mercury Innovation and the EU-based Visionect, the world leaders in outdoor e-paper products.
The eStop is another breakthrough product in the partnership between Visionect and Mercury. Together, Mercury and Visionect are making outdoor sustainable signage a reality, following the success of their 2016 installation of solar powered e-paper traffic signs in Sydney, a world first, running uninterrupted with an unprecedented zero failure rate more than 2 years later.