Visit in Turku

Winter came back to Finland. The sun is shining, at eleven o'clock it is 24 degrees (-5 degrees Celcius) and a cold wind from the North goes through marrow and bones at Salutorget market square in Turku. Here, the Social Democrats is serving hot pea soup and at least it smells good. No time to taste it though, I need to catch a bus. 

Yesterday offered an interesting seminar on waste and circular economics in Forum Marinum. The seminar was organized by the Nordic archpelago cooperation (website in Swedish and Finnish) and we were about fifty people attending. From Åland, Minister for the Environment, Camilla Gunell, was holding a presentation. I liked that she mentioned our company Petrolax and the work on our fish offal project!

The following speakers were Reeni Kennedy-Boyle of Fyne Future Ltd who presented the recycling work on Isle of Bute, in Scotland.

According to her presentation, they had reduced their carbon dioxide emissions and been able to engage residents to reuse and recycle more waste than before. The changeover had been harder for the older (also school childrens (!)) while the younger adapted more quickly.

By changing thier waste management, they had succeeded in reducing the amount of garbage generated and were now to start cooperation with the mainland on wind energy production.

The word Fyne sounded familiar to me and in the break I asked Reeni if it had anything to do with Loch Fyne, the fjord at Ardkinglas where we had been to Tai Chi camp several times. 

She knew Ardkinglas and invited me to Bute, that was further out in the Loch, to see how they work. We can't make it since we have already booked the trip this time with fixed flight tickets, maybe next year though. 

Ardkinglas House at Loch Fyne, Scotland

The model of sorting the waste into different fractions might also work for us in Åland Island, but I'm sorry to say that the market forces probably are too strong here and will prevent any changes to the current system. We'we made it easy for by transporting most of the garbage to Uppsala central heating company.

In the evening I visited the Masonic Lodge of St. Henrik and we had a very nice meeting. A big thank you to all who made the visit memorable, especially Robert Stolpe who played an important role.

Today I went to meet Johan and Julia who, together with their dogs, Tengil and the newcomer Katla (French bulldogs) moved to a house a bit from the center of town. It was great fun to meet them and see that they have found a place where they could easily get out with the dogs.