CECI Christmas party - Promoting sharing and circular economy through cooperation!
Happy reunions, making new acquaintances and a wintry morning full of talks about circular and sharing economy. The CECI project’s Finnish Christmas celebration brought together people interested in the circular and sharing economy and citizen involvement. The event was organized in the Creation HQ, the circular economy centre for creative industries in Lahti. Creation HQ is located in an old ski factory, that has former also served as a furniture factory. With Creation HQ the premises have now received lots of new activities e.g., a carpentry shop, a seamstress workshop, a program service company, and a traditional papermaker who is using recycled material to create artistic paper products. The premises also include space for exhibitions and events.
The CECI Finland team brought greetings from the project meeting in Mechelen, Belgium, where project partners visited in late November to learn about a variety of local circular economy solutions. The city of Mechelen works strongly with third sector actors, enabling various experiments and funding the circular economy activities of both residents and associations.
The Askel project team presented the project and its results. The aim of the Askel project was to enable residents to move towards more sustainable housing and to make it easier for companies to create a new kind of environmentally responsible business. The project gained important experience in utilizing service design in the resident community and identified opportunities and challenges for considering the residents’ own circular economy solutions.
The Textiles in Circulation in Päijät-Häme project is currently preparing activities related to the separate collection of textiles. The project explores the regional organization of the separate textile collections, gathers a network of partners, and develops their activities, as well as employment opportunities in textile collection and sorting. Also informing citizens how to recycle their textiles correctly is one of the aims.
The Hiukka and Hiukka 2.0 projects are studying the possibilities of organic fibres in replacing plastic-based materials. The projects experiment with hair and hair fibres using them to replace plastic in products used for landscaping and oil spill response. The Hiukka 2.0 project also aims to improve the understanding and knowledge of the local actors about the business principles of the circular economy. The project has its own workshop on the premises of Creation HQ.
The representatives of various circular and sharing economy projects were excited about the CECI Christmas meeting. Discussions with other actors and learning from others are good ways to develop existing activities and discover new ideas.
