Hazardous substances management in municipalities
The URBAN group has significant experience in planning and implementing hazardous substances reduction measures together with the public sector i.e., municipalities. Since hazardous substances emissions originate from multiple sources, our management approach must be diverse. The team has delivered a range of activities that contribute to the improved hazardous substances management, including hazardous substances screening, stakeholder training, supporting green public procurement and developing and testing of filter structures.
Monitoring of hazardous substances in urban storm waters and municipal wastewater
The URBAN team has participated in several national and international R&D projects that has been monitoring hazardous substances occurrence in urban storm water and municipal wastewater. Team has experienced and licensed staff for sampling and modern monitoring equipment. Often screening activities are required to set a baseline and/or targets for reduction measures for example in a municipality or in a company. Here you can get familiar with the monitoring activities performed for SourceTrack (in Finnish) and NonHazCity projects.
Development of training about hazardous substances management for municipality employees
Successful hazardous substances management requires that all levels of our society are well informed about the risks they pose to our health and environment. The URBAN Team has developed and tested training materials and training for example for municipalities to bridge the knowledge gap of municipality employees. You can get familiar with the training for Finnish municipal eco-supporters and the chemical training in English. To be able to engage different target groups, our team has experiences in utilization of pedagogical tools like Innopeda.
Support for public procurers for Implementation of green public procurement and chemical smart public procurement
The URBAN team has strong experiences in chemical smart public procurement and green public procurement. URBAN team is an author of Guide for Chemical Smart Public Procurement and team has provided expertise and implemented trainings for Finnish national voluntary green deal agreement for municipalities concerning reduction of hazardous chemicals in pre-school procurements.
Our projects:
NonHazCity: Haitallisten aineiden hallinta kaupunkiympäristössä. (2016–2019)
Laivojen vesijärjestelmät (2015)
Publications:
Kiviluoto K., Leskinen P., Yliruusi H. (2018): Haitalliset aineet kaupunkiympäristössä: – Kaupunkien vähentämistoimenpiteiden askelmerkit. Ympäristö ja terveys 2/2018
Lankiniemi S., Kontturi K., Leskinen P., Yliruusi H. (2018): Kemikaaliviisaan hankkijan opas. Turun kaupunki, 2018
Materials:
Juha Kääriä’s presentation “Innovative Water Circulation in Turku region SW Finland” in Baltic University Programme Symposium 2020