1) Please introduce your organization and your region.
The County Administrative Board of Östergötland is a regional authority and the National Government’s regional representative office in the county. Östergötland is one of 21 counties in Sweden with around 460 000 inhabitants.
Our main assignment is to make sure that Government policies are enacted at the regional level.
We work within a wide range of areas such as rural and regional development, environmental protection and inspection, nature conservation, spatial planning, veterinary issues, civil defence and crisis preparedness, cultural heritage and social sustainability. Our mission is to coordinate the different areas to achieve efficient solutions for a sustainable society.
2) What is the main challenge in your region related to waste management that you want to address through the OptiWaMag project?
The main challenges in our region is waste prevention and construction and demolition waste. The major challenge is to reach higher up the EU waste hierarchy. The problems exist for both households and businesses (eg construction and demolition waste). There is a tradition that actors in waste management handle the issue of waste disposal and recycling, but in order to work towards a more circular management, a broader perspective is probably required and the issue become multidisciplinary.
Traditional structures are basically worked out from a sanitation perspective, which means that they are not necessarily optimal in a circular economy. Although waste minimize is top priority, for the waste that still arises, there is a need to see it as a resource to a greater extent and to create opportunities and platforms for increased recycling and reuse.
3) What is your expectation for the output of the project?
To implement the national plan efficiently we need to develop our regional waste plan. In the regional waste plan we will identify a series of initiatives to be implemented on the road to a more resource-efficient society. When we develop our regional waste plan we will be able to find new cooperation between the municipalities within our county and find new solutions for identified obstacles to reach some of the national goals for waste. By improving our regional waste plan by influences from other regions within EU and from our Stakeholders we will improve the waste management in our region in total. The expertise and knowledge from our Stakeholders will contribute to several perspective needed in this work. After the project we will have an updated regional waste plan that will be continued.
