The Tallinn City Government decided during today’s meeting that seven locations in Old Town will be leased out to Ringo Eco OÜ, a business specialising in green technology. The aim of this cooperation is to conduct a month-long pilot project to test the collection of reusable packaging in Old Town.

Ringo Eco will set up seven collection boxes in Old Town: on Nunne Street, two around Freedom Square, in Tammsaare park, on Viru Street and two on Harju Street. The pilot project’s goals are to evaluate the use and emptying of collection boxes, problems that might emerge and the public’s desire to join and use a platform service for reusable packaging.

Tallinn’s deputy mayor Joosep Vimm claims that the pilot project is an important step in transitioning to reuse solutions. “Today we’re cooperating with Ringo, but the wider goal is to make the use of reusable packaging and dishes easy and convenient for the public,” said Vimm. “We certainly welcome other businesses coming to us with their ideas, as the transition to a circular economy can only happen when the city, state and businesses cooperate.”

Ringo Eco is developing a countrywide platform for reusable packaging. Ringo will guarantee the collection, cleaning and administration of packages. For final consumers, Ringo Eco offers collection and removal of reusable packages. 119 Estonian eateries have joined the platform by today (94 of them in Tallinn) and reusable packaging pilot projects are being conducted for retail chains, food producers and organisers of large events.

From 1 June 2023, all public events in Tallinn are allowed to serve food and drinks in only reusable vessels and use only reusable cutlery. Single-use drinking straws, stirring sticks and cocktail decorations that do not contain plastics (incl. bio-based plastics), plastics that degrade from oxidants or biodegradable plastics are allowed. The goal is to make the public more environmentally conscious of waste, decrease the amount of waste and litter created during public events and improve the development of circular economy business models by creating demand for reuse systems.

From 1 June 2023, the use of only reusable dishes in public events will be mandatory for events with less than 30,000 visitors per day. For public events with 30,000 or more visitors per day, this will be mandatory from 1 January 2024.