Tallinn Deputy Mayor Joosep Vimm (SDE) says that making environmentally friendly choices needs also to be convenient, for residents of the district.

He said: "I believe that these eight new package disposal locations will encourage the citizens of Old Town to sort their waste more carefully."

"It is also important to remember that unsorted waste disposal is the most expensive way of disposing waste. This means that the cheapest way to reduce mixed municipal waste is to sort it properly," Vimm continued via a city government press release.

Previously, residents of the Old Town had not had any convenient options for disposing of packaging waste at public packaging points, the city government says.

District Governor Monika Haukanõmm (Center) said: "Public waste disposal bins represent a new greener era of waste disposal in the Old Town. I believe this is undoubtedly a positive change by which we can improve our culture of waste disposal."

"Undoubtedly, convenient waste disposal is important for people and if those waste collection points are close to home, it will improve environmentally friendly behavior and it seems that separate collection of packaging is the only way to do so," she went on.

Head of Tootjavastutusorganisatsioon OÜ Kristiina Dreimann, partnering in the project, said:

"By reducing the amounts of mixed municipal waste, the residents will also decrease the cost of their monthly waste disposal."

"This should definitely be a huge motivator for the residents to separate packaging from other waste. If packages are collected separate from municipal waste, we can recycle these materials. In this way every resident of Tallinn Old Town will make a contribution to the improvement of the environment," she added-

Separate containers for plastics and metals, beverage cartons (yellow containers), cardboard-paper packaging (blue) and glass packaging (green) containers have been installed at eight locations in the Old Town and have been designed with the UNESCO-listed district's aesthetics in mind.

The city government asks users to sort their garbage before disposing of it and, where necessary, to rinse or otherwise clean up packaging of excess food or other residue.

The eight locations are at: Aia St 11, Toompuiestee T2 (near Balti jaam), Suurtüki St 4a, Falgi St 4, the Valli St parking area, near the Wismari St parking area, near Viru St 27a and also Vana-Posti St

More information is here.

The city government says that around 60 percent of total waste consists of packaging, adding that research suggests one individual, normal household will produce two or three 150-liter bags of such packaging every month, making its separate collection the only viable way of making waste disposal more efficient.

A dedicated procurement process led to three recycling organizations - Eesti Taaskasutusorganisatsioon MTÜ (ETO), Eesti Pakendiringlus OÜ (EPR) and Tootjavastutusorganisatsioon OÜ (TVO) managing the project.

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