Oslo owns a biogas plant, transforming food waste into biogas, which is used as fuel by buses and garbage collection trucks in the city. Biofertilisers are also produced at the plant and used by farmers to produce food. This plant is the largest biogas plant in Norway with a capacity for 50,000 tons of biological substances.
Today, citizens in Oslo source separate 46% of their food waste in green bags. Likewise, the city’s recycling stations collected 15,300 tons – 27 kg per person – of garden waste in the same year. This waste was then composted and returned to citizens as soil so they could use it in their gardens.
Oslo aims to utilise the bio-resources from its municipal sewage system by sending the sludge to farmers for their agricultural activities. To ensure high quality sludge content, Oslo actively works to reduce the inflow of wastewater containing micro-pollutants to the municipal sewage network.
Changing citizens’ behaviours remains a challenge, specifically correctly separating their household waste. The bulk of food waste – 64% – is not source separated by citizens. In turn, the unseparated waste can only be used for energy recovery purposes.
How Oslo, Norway integrates the Circular Economy across Industries.
https://circularregions.org/region/oslo-region/
A cross-sector multi-stakeholder network initiated in 2018 connecting industry, SMEs, non-profits and social enterprise, as well as research and the public sector with the aim of accelerating the Circular Economy in the Greater Oslo Region by bridging top-down and bottom-up initiatives. The Region is home to approximately a third of the Norwegian population. The urban area extends beyond the boundaries of the municipality of Oslo into the surrounding counties of Viken, Innlandet and Vestfold & Telemark. By connecting both urban and rural communities, we aim to optimise the use of resources through shared tools and knowledge with a digital infrastructure to support collaboration and scale our collective impact.