Finland’s long, hard road to creating a circular economy

Helsinki

Helsinki aims to recycle all garbage

Subodh Agnihotri/Getty

THEY say you can never truly throw anything “away”. Well, I’m looking at “away” right now – a state-of-the-art rubbish dump outside Helsinki, Finland, that forms a critical part of the country’s mission to become a no-waste economy by 2025.

The Ämmässuo Waste Treatment Centre in Espoo serves 1.1 million residents of inner Helsinki. Everything they bin – literally everything – ends up here. That is 457,000 tonnes of garbage a year, and what happens to it next is about as good as it gets in terms of environmental stewardship. …