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Greater Helsinki

Greater Helsinki

Greater Helsinki (Finnish: Suur-Helsinki, Swedish: Storhelsingfors), Capital Region (Pääkaupunkiseutu, Huvudstadsregionen), Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and Helsinki Region (Helsingin seutu, Helsingforsregionen) all refer to regions of different size surrounding Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is located in the south of Finland, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea. The area has a population of 975,000 to 1.3 million, depending on how one draws the boundaries. The Helsinki region is the largest urbanised area in the country, and is by far the most important centre economically, as well as in culture and science. Eight out of Finland's 20 universities and most of the headquarters of notable companies and governmental institutions are located in Greater Helsinki, as is Finland's main aviation hub, Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Definitions of Greater Helsinki

In the strictest sense, the Capital Region consists of four municipalities with city-status: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, whose total population is 975,922 (2004). This area is most often called Helsinki Metropolitan Area in English, and Pääkaupunkiseutu in Finnish, although the use of the terms is not especially consistent. Sometimes it is called the "YTV area", referring to YTV, or the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, which serves as a co-operation agency for the four central municipalities, mainly providing for public transport and waste management services. The vast majority of the inhabitants live in the conurbation of the towns with the same names, but within the boundaries of these cities there is also non-urban and suburban areas. Commonly about eight more municipalities are considered to be part of Greater Helsinki. When Hyvinkää, Järvenpää, Kerava, Kirkkonummi, Nurmijärvi, Sipoo, Tuusula, and Vihti are included, the number of inhabitants rises to 1.2 million. All of the municipalities belong to the region of Uusimaa, with the exception of Sipoo, located on the coast east of Helsinki, which belongs to Eastern Uusimaa. In the broadest sense, the Helsinki Region encompasses some 25 municipalities, with a total population of more than 1.3 million. The commuter belt of Helsinki, however, stretches even further with many people from as far as Lahti and even Tampere commuting to Helsinki daily.

Statistics

The table below lists population, area and population density for the most central municipalites of the Greater Helsinki area. (Note that "Metropolitan Area" and the other terms used are not completely established, and may vary in different contexts.)

External links

- [http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/hel_sat.html Satellite image of the Helsinki region]
- [http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/metropol.html Virtual Finland: Helsinki Metropolitan Area]
- [http://kartta.hel.fi/opas/en/ Guide map of the Helsinki Region]
- [http://www.ytv.fi/english/ YTV, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council]
- [http://www.helsinkiregion.com/ Marketing site for the Helsinki Region] Helsinki Category:Helsinki

Finland-Swedish

Finland-Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Finland-Swedes as a first language. For the most part, these dialects are mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish or can even be considered varieties of it. A common mistake made by many Swedes is to mistake Finland-Swedish for Swedish with a Finnish accent, something that can be a considerable source of frustration to most Finland-Swedes. Curiously enough, the percentually most Swedish speaking municipality in the world, Hammarland (96% as of 12.31.2004) (maybe Korsnäs (95,7%), resides in Finland. In spoken language, especially among young people in Finnish-dominated areas, Finnish loanwords, as well as calques from Finnish, are frequently incorporated. There are also some words in the Finland-Swedish that in Sweden would be considered slightly archaic. Some words from the field of government and public service that have been created in recent centuries do also differ, like also other new words, notably loanwords from English. Some specific dialects from Ostrobothnia are practically unintelligible to Swedish-speaking people in southern Finland. Swedish as spoken in Finland is regulated by the "Swedish Department" of the "Research Institute for the Languages of Finland". There is an officially stated aim that Finland-Swedish should remain close to the Swedish spoken in Sweden, thus the Swedish Department strongly advises against loanwords and calques from Finnish, which are often incomprehensible to Sweden-Swedes.

History

From the 16th century Swedish, rather than Finnish, was the main language of jurisdiction, administration and higher education in Finland. In 1892 Finnish and Swedish became official languages with equal status, and by the time of Finland's independence in 1917 Finnish clearly dominated in government and society. Finland has since then been a bilingual country with a Swedish-speaking minority (5.08% of Mainland Finland's population in 2003), speaking Finland-Swedish, living mostly in the coastal areas of southern, south-western, and western Finland. During the 20th century, the urbanization following the Industrial Revolution has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital Helsingfors became the predominantly Finnish-speaking city Helsinki as early as around year 1900. A large and important part of the Finland-Swedes nevertheless live in the capital. The autonomous island-province of Åland is an exception, being monolingually Swedish-speaking according to international treaties. It is a matter of definition whether the Swedish dialects spoken on Åland are to be considered Finland-Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns consider them to be closer to some of the dialects spoken in nearby parts of Sweden.

Sounds

With the exception of the dialect spoken in Ostrobothnia along the west coast, closer to the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland-Swedish are not particularly deviant from Central Swedish. The phonology is identical, but with slightly different vowel qualities. The phoneme /ʉ/ is more centralized and pronounced like , quite similar to the American English pronunciation of /u/ (as in moon). This should be compared to the Central Swedish , which is very close to the short vowel and is more rounded. The realization of the highly variable phoneme , is more frontal on the mainland and can vary between and while the realizations on Åland are more similar to the velar (and often distinctly labialized) in Sweden. is affricated into in all dialects. The tonal word accent, which distinguishes some minimal pairs in most dialects of Swedish and Norwegian is not present in Finland-Swedish. The so-called accent 2, used mainly in words with a two-syllable root is not used at all, and instead the normal accent 1 is used in all words. Hence Sweden-Swedish minimal pairs like ("the duck"), with stress on only the first syllable, and ("the spirit") with both syllables stressed, are both pronounced in Finland.

External links

[http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Finland/index.html SweDia] - a collection of dialect samples of Finland-Swedish Category:Swedish language

Helsinki

Helsinki (pronounced with the stress on the first syllable in Finnish: ), or Helsingfors in Swedish (), also called "Stadi" in local slang, is the capital of Finland. It is located in the southern part of Finland on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, at . Helsinki forms a conurbation with three other cities, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen, which are together called the capital area. This area has about 975,000 citizens. The Greater Helsinki area contains a lot more municipalities and has a total population of 1,232,741 (2004).

History

Main article: History of Helsinki Founded in 1550 as a rival to the Hanseatic city of Tallinn by the King Gustav I of Sweden, Helsinki struggled in its infancy. The fledging settlement was plagued by poverty, wars and diseases. For a long time it remained as a small low-key coastal town, overshadowed by the more thriving trade centers in the Baltic region. Construction of the Suomenlinna sea fortress helped to improve its status, but it was not until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that Helsinki began to truly change. To help reduce the Swedish influence, tsar Alexander I of Russia had the capital moved from Turku to Helsinki. Academy of Åbo, the only university in the country, was also relocated to Helsinki in 1827, eventually becoming the University of Helsinki. This move consolidated the city's new role and the following decades saw unprecedented growth and development for the city, creating the prerequisites for the birth of a modern world class capital in the 20th century. This transformation is highly apparent in the downtown core, which was rebuilt in neoclassical style to resemble St. Petersburg. Like elsewhere, technological advancements such as railroads and industrialization were a key factor behind the growth. Although much of the first half of the 20th century was a violent period for Helsinki, it continued to steadily develop. Modern postwar urbanization of the 1970s, which occurred relatively late in European context, tripled the population in the metropolitan area, making the Helsinki metropolitan area one of the fastest growing urban centers in the European Union in 1990s.

Services

Education

Helsinki metropolitan area Helsinki has 190 comprehensive schools, upper secondary schools and 15 vocational institutes. Half of the 41 upper secondary schools are private or state-owned. Higher level education is given in eight universities (see the section "Universities" below) and four polytechnics.

Institutions of higher education

Universitites

Main article: Universities in Finland
- University of Helsinki
- Helsinki University of Technology (actually located in Espoo)
- Helsinki School of Economics
- Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
- Academy of Fine Arts
- Sibelius Academy
- Theatre Academy
- University of Art and Design Helsinki
- National Defence College (Finland) (not necessarily considered a university)

Polytechnics

- Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia
- Helsinki Polytechnic Arcada

Traffic

Helsinki Polytechnic Arcada In Helsinki, public transport is mostly managed by Helsinki City Transport. The diverse public transport system consists of trams, VR lähiliikenne commuter trains, the Helsinki Metro and bus lines. The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council manages traffic to the surrounding municipalities of Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen. Today, Helsinki is the only city in Finland to have trams or metro trains. There used to be two other cities in Finland with tram traffic: Turku and Viipuri (Vyborg). However, Turku abandoned trams in 1972 and Viipuri (at that time part of the Soviet Union) abandoned them in 1957. The metro line, opened in 1982, was the first, and so far the only, metro line in all of Finland. For the first 16 years of its existence, the line was topologically only one straight line, but in 1998 a fork was added at Itäkeskus metro station, dividing the remainder of the line into two branches with three stations each. Metro is an especially important method of transportation for commuters in the growing suburbs of Eastern Helsinki, and there are also plans to further expand the system to Espoo (see Länsimetro), but lack of agreement over financing has caused delays to the project. If the plans for automation in the system are approved, the Helsinki Metro will operate without drivers in 2010. Air traffic is handled from the international Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and Malmi Airport. Ferry connections to Tallinn and Stockholm are serviced by various companies, including Silja Line, Viking Line, SeaWind Line, Linda Line, Nordic Jet Line and Tallink (see Ruotsinlaiva). In summer, passenger ferries to Travemünde, Germany are also available. Copterline provides fast helicopter flights to Tallinn.

Other services

Copterline Copterline The largest hospitals of Finland are located in Helsinki, for example HYKS and many private hospitals. Also police and fire departments serve citizens.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Helsinki

Geography

Main article: Geography of Helsinki Helsinki spreads around a number of bays and peninsulas and over a number of islands. Some of the most important islands include Seurasaari, Lauttasaari and Korkeasaari – which is also the country's biggest zoo – as well as the fortress island of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg) and the military island of Santahamina.

Architecture

Santahamina] Carl Ludvig Engel (1778-1840) designed several neo-classical buildings in Helsinki. He was kept in Helsinki by a unique assignment, as he was elected to plan a new centrum all on his own, which later on was also referred to as The White City Of The North. The city became shallow and wide at the time when most buildings had only two or three floors. In the middle of the city, on the northern side of the Senate Square, he planned an enormous Cathedral, which was finished in 1852, twelve years after C. L. Engel's death. Helsinki is, however, perhaps even more famous for its numerous Art Nouveau buildings, designed in the early 1900s and strongly influenced by Kalevala, which is a very popular theme in the national romantic art of that era. Helsinki also features several buildings by the world-renowned finnish architect Alvar Aalto, also attributed as one of the pioneers in functionalism. Many of Aalto's projects are both loved and hated. Houses such as the Enso-house and the Finlandia Hall have been much debated by Helsinki's inhabitants.

Culture

Helsinki can also be considered Finland's culture-capital. Helsinki's two main museums are the Ateneum and the Kiasma, the later displaying contemporary art, while the former being well-known for it's classical art exhibitions. Helsinki's main musical venues are the Finlandia concert-hall and the Finnish National Opera. Bigger concerts and events are usually held at one of the city's two big hockey-stadiums the Hartwall Areena or the Helsingin jäähalli. Helsinki also has a big fair center. Helsinki is also known for its active ICT and digital cultures scene in Greater Helsinki. Some widely renowned bands originate from Helsinki, including HIM, The Rasmus and The 69 Eyes.

Happenings

- [http://www.valonvoimat.org/2004.html Valon Voimat] "Forces of Light" is an annual winter arts festival.
- [http://www.helsinkifestival.fi/ Helsingin Juhlaviikot] is an annual arts and culture festival, which takes place every August.

Tourism

See also: Tourism in Finland, List of sites in Helsinki Helsinki is small and intimate; lively but not bustling. Its size makes it easy to walk around and cafés, markets, and the nearby islands are its summer delights. market Because Helsinki is located at the coast of the Baltic Sea and has many kilometres of coastline, most of its central districts are near the seaside. Helsinki is a very maritime city and is popularly called the daughter of the Baltic. Helsinki's main beach is Hietaniemi Beach (often simply called Hietsu). This sandy beach is located in the Töölö district, next to the Hietaniemi Cemetery and close to the city centre. Many people who stay in the city during summer swim, sunbathe and play beach volleyball there. The main districts around the center include Katajanokka, Eira, Kamppi, Kruununhaka, Töölö, Punavuori and Kallio. Suomenlinna is a large fortress built on one small group of islands in the mid-eighteenth century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a popular tourist attraction. Air travel to Helsinki is via the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Helsinki also has popular ferry links with Stockholm, Sweden and Tallinn, Estonia. Silja, Viking and Tallink are the biggest ferry operators.

Notable natives

- Ragnar Granit - Nobel laureate
- Tarja Halonen - President of the Republic of Finland
- Tove Jansson - author and creator of the Moomin characters
- Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld - scientist
- Esa-Pekka Salonen - conductor and composer
- Helene Schjerfbeck - painter
- Linus Torvalds - creator of the first Linux kernel
- Ville Valo - musician, HIM
- Artturi Ilmari Virtanen - Nobel laureate
- Mika Waltari - author
- All members of the rock band The Rasmus

Olympics

Helsinki was the host of the 1952 Summer Olympics.

Trivia

The asteroid 1495 Helsinki was named after the city by its discoverer, the Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä.

External links

- [http://www.hel.fi/ Helsinki] – Official site
-
- [http://fox.zero.ad.jp/~zas68510/Helsinki_Map_Blank.gif Map of central Helsinki]
- [http://www.histdoc.net/kaup1902/helsinki.gif Map of Helsinki in 1902]
- [http://kartta.hel.fi/opas/images/seutu.jpg Map of Helsinki Metropolitan Area]
- [http://aikataulut.ytv.fi/reittiopas/en/ Journey Planner] – a web application for determining public transport routes in the Helsinki region
- [http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/extras/photogallery Helsinki through the lense] – Photo gallery
- [http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=27690&LAN=ENG Webcam] Helsinki live webcam
- [http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/images/helsin.jpg Satellite map of Helsinki]
- [http://groups.msn.com/FinlandTravelClub/helsinki.msnw Helsinki] - Finland Travel Club
- [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Helsinki&ll=60.167198,24.943900&spn=0.014724,0.051533&t=k&hl=en Satellite map of Helsinki] on Google maps Category:Capitals in Europe Category:Coastal cities of Finland Category:Host cities of the Summer Olympic Games Category:Municipalities of Uusimaa Region Category:Cities and towns in Finland ko:헬싱키 ja:ヘルシンキ simple:Helsinki

Capital

:This article concerns places that serve as centers of government and politics. For alternative meanings see capital (disambiguation) In politics, a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has an alternative meaning based on an alternative meaning of "capital") is the principal city or town associated with its government. It is almost always the city which physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of the seat of government and fixed by law. The word capital is derived from the Latin caput meaning "head," and the related term capitol refers to the building where government-business is chiefly conducted. Seats of government in major substate jurisdictions are usually called "capitals", but at lower administrative subdivisions, terms such as county town, county seat, or borough seat are also used. As the focal point of power for the country or region, the capital naturally attracts the politically motivated and those whose skills are needed for efficient administration of government such as lawyers, journalists, and public policy researchers. Older capitals have often developed into prime economic, cultural, or intellectual centers as well. Such is certainly the case with Paris and Buenos Aires among national capitals, and Irkutsk or Salt Lake City in their respective state or province. Such concentration may be controversial. The siting of Brasília in Brazil's heartland was done in order to bring progress to the interior of the country, since the old capital, Rio de Janeiro, along with entire Southeastern Brazil was already crowded. The government of South Korea announced in 2004 it would move its capital from Seoul to Yeongi-Gongju — even though the word Seoul itself means "capital" in the Korean language. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal. Traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, as occurred with Thebes by Alexandria, Nanjing by Shanghai, or Edinburgh by Glasgow. The decline of a dynasty or culture could mean the extinction of its capital city as well, as occurred with Babylon and Cahokia. And many modern capital cities, such as Abuja and Ottawa, were deliberately fixed outside existing economic areas, and may not have established themselves as new commercial or industrial hubs since.

Multiple capitals

:See also: List of multiple capitals A number of cases exist where states or other entities have multiple capitals. In South Africa, for example, the administrative capital is Pretoria, the legislative capital is Cape Town, and the judicial capital is Bloemfontein, the outcome of the compromise that created the Union of South Africa in 1910. In others, the "effective" and "official" capital may differ for pragmatic reasons, resulting in a situation where a city known as "the capital" is not, in fact, host to the seat of government:
- Yamoussoukro was designated the national capital of Côte d'Ivoire in 1983, but as of 2004 most government offices and embassies were still located in Abidjan
- Sucre is still the constitutional capital of Bolivia, but most of the national government long abandoned that region for La Paz
- Amsterdam is the nominal national capital of the Netherlands even though the Dutch government and supreme court are both located in The Hague. In such cases, the city housing the administrative capital is usually understood to be the "national capital" among outsiders. For instance, Santiago is understood to be the capital of Chile even though its Congress is in Valparaiso.

Capital as symbol

With the rise of modern empires and the nation-state, the capital city has become a symbol for the state and its government, and imbued with political meaning. Unlike medieval capitals, which were declared wherever a monarch held his or her court, the selection, relocation, founding, or capture of a modern capital city is an emotional affair. For example:
- Ruined and almost uninhabited Athens was made capital of newly independent Greece with the romantic notion of reviving the glory of the ancients;
- Peter I of Russia moved his government to Saint Petersburg to give the Russian Empire a western orientation, while Kemal Atatürk did the same by ironically moving east to Ankara, away from Ottoman Istanbul;
- The selection or founding of a "neutral" city, one unencumbered by regional or political identity, represented the unity of a new state with Madrid in Spain, Washington, D.C. in the United States, and Canberra in Australia among others;
- During the American Civil War, tremendous resources were expended to defend Washington, D.C. from Confederate attack even though the small federal government could have been moved relatively easily in the era of railroads and telegraph.
- Berlin has risen from the ashes of World War II (Stunde Null) to become the new/old capital city of the third most prosperous nation in the World, Germany.

The effects of the capital

The capital city is almost always the main target in a war, as capturing it usually guarantees capture of much of the enemy government, and victory for the attacking forces. In the tradition of drama, capital cities are usually associated with high stake final battles, such as in the Lord of the Rings series where the forces of Mordor besiege the Gondorian capital of Minas Tirith; it is assumed if the city falls, Gondor falls with it. In old China, the relatively fragile dynasties could easily be toppled with the fall of their capital. In the Three Kingdoms period, both Shu and Wu fell when their respective capitals of Cheng Du and Jian Ye fell. The Ming were destroyed when the Manchus took their seat of power, and this pattern endlessly repeats itself in Chinese history. In the West, things were vastly different. The Byzantine Empire lasted for nearly 60 years after Crusaders took their capital city of Constantinople. The American revolutionaries lost their capital of Philadelphia, but survived the blow.

Largest national capital cities

Some of the largest cities in the world are not national capitals. The largest national capitals on each continent, by urban/metropolitan area population, are:
- Africa: Cairo (11,146,000)
- Asia: Tokyo (35,237,000)
- Europe: Moscow (13,600,000)
- North America: Mexico City (17,809,471)
- Oceania: Wellington (367,600)
- South America: Buenos Aires (13,349,000)

Lists of capitals

- Lists of national capitals
- by name
- by country (with also the largest city)
- by continent and country
- List of historical national capitals
- List of capitals of subnational entities
- List of multiple capitals
- List of countries that have the name of their capital included in their name
- List of countries whose capital is not their largest city Category:Capitals Category:Political geography als:Hauptstadt ko:수도 ja:首都 ms:Ibu negara simple:Capital (city) th:เมืองหลวง zh-min-nan:Siú-to·

FinlanD

Finland.

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53 deg. to 66 deg. north latitude and from 20 deg. to 26 deg. east longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainlands of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Öresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. Kattegat then continues in the Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is linked to the White Sea by the White Sea Canal and directly to the North Sea by the Kiel Canal. Kiel Canal

Name

The first one to name it the Baltic Sea was Adam of Bremen and he seems to have based it on a large island, Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon and located in northern Europe.

Etymology

It is possibly connected to the Germanic belt, a name used for some of the Danish straits, while others claim it to be derived from Latin balteus (belt). From this use, Baltic has been applied to the Baltic countries. Another proposed derivation from the Indo-European root [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/piet&text_number=+129&root=config
- bhel] meaning white, shining seems speculative.

The name in other languages

The Baltic Sea is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages:
- In the Germanic languages except English East Sea is used: Danish (Østersøen), Dutch (Oostzee), German (Ostsee), Norwegian (Østersjøen), and Swedish (Östersjön); in addition, Finnish, a Balto-Finnic language has calqued the Swedish term as Itämeri, disregarding the geography; the sea is west of Finland.
- In another Balto-Finnic language, Estonian, it is called the West Sea (Läänemeri).
- Baltic Sea is used in English; in Latin (Mare Balticum) and the Romance languages French (Mer Baltique), Italian (Mar Baltico), Romanian (Marea Baltică) and Spanish (Mar Báltico); in the Slavic languages Polish (Morze Bałtyckie or Bałtyk), Kashubian (Bôłt), and Russian (Baltiyskoye Morye (Балтийское море)); and in the Baltic languages Latvian (Baltijas jūra) and Lithuanian (Baltijos jūra). ; Notes # [http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfbb/0435.html] (in ).

Geophysical data

The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, the largest body of brackish water in the world. The fact that it does not come from the collision of plates, but is a glacially scoured river valley, accounts for its relative shallowness.

Dimensions

The Baltic sea is about 1610 km (1000 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 m (180 ft, 30 fathoms) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1506 ft, 251 fathoms), on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 377,000 sq km (145,522 sq mi) and the volume is about 21,000 cubic km (3129 cubic mi). The periphery amounts to about 8000 km (4968 mi) of coastline. [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/geograph.htm] These figures are somewhat variable because a number of different estimates have been made.

Icing in winter

The Baltic sea is iced in winter, except for the deepest regions in the center. Ice begins in the Gulf of Bothnia in October or November. Fast ice, attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering the ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice or rafter ice form in the more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m, and was noted by the ancients. The degree of icing depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate or severe. Severe winters ice even the regions around Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving open only a relatively small extent south of Gotland. The ice reaches a maximum extent in February or March. By June it is gone.

Hydrography

The Baltic Sea is effluent through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 cubic km per year into the North Sea. Due to the difference in salinity, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in 475 cubic km per year. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the salt water remaining below 40 to 70 m of depth. The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about 1.6 million square km, contributing a volume of 660 cubic km per year to the Baltic. They include the major rivers of north Europe, such as the Oder, the Vistula, the Neman and the Neva. Some of this water is polluted. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. Despite the influx of salt water in the lower levels, the Baltic is still more of a lake or river than a sea. Tides are negligible. Wave height in calm weather varies between 2 and 3 m. Violent and sudden storms often sweep the surface, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of wind.

Salinity

Salinity is much lower than in the ocean, varying from 0.1 percent in the north to 0.6-0.8 percent in the center. Below 40-70 m, it can be as much as 1.5-2.0 percent. A lateral salinity gradient also exists from most saline in the northern Kattegat to least saline in the Northern Gulf of Bothnia. The most saline water remains on the bottom, creating a barrier to the exchange of Oxygen and nutrients, fostering totally different maritime environments.

Regional emergence

The land is still emerging from its subsident state, which was caused by the weight of the last glaciation. Consequently, the surface area and the depth of the sea are diminishing. The uplift is about eight millimetres per year on the Finnish coast of the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia .

Geographic data

Subdivisions

The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia out of which the northernmost part is referred to as the Bay of Bothnia. Immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with St. Petersburg. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland Basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea. The Gulf of Riga lies between Riga and Saaremaa. Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel peninsula on the Polish coast and west of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast. Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom and Wolin, east of Rügen. Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm and Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The three Danish straits, the Great Belt, the Little Belt and The Sound (Öresund) connect the Baltic Sea with the Kattegat bay and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea. The confluence of these two seas at Skagen on the northern tip of Denmark is a visual spectacle visited by many tourists each year.

Land use

The Baltic sea drainage basin is roughly four times the surface area of the sea itself. About 48% of the region is forested, with Sweden and Finland containing the majority of the forest, especially around the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. About 20% of the land is used for agriculture and pasture, mainly in Poland and around the edge of the Baltic sea proper, in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. About 17% of the basin is unused open land with another 8% of wetlands. Most of the latter are in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. The rest of the land is heavily populated.

Demographics

About 85 million people live in the Baltic drainage basin, 15 within 10 km of the coast and 29 within 50 km of the coast. Around 22 million live in cities, defined as centers of over 250,000. 90% of these are concentrated in the 10 km band around the coast. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85 million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and the others (see below) less than 6% each.

Geologic history

The Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries (the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia). From geological surveys it has become apparent that there was a river in the area prior to the Pleistocene: the Eridanos. Multiple glaciations in the Pleistocene scooped out the river bed into the sea basin. By the time of the last, or Eemian interglacial (MIS 5e), the Eemian sea was in place. From that time the waters underwent a geologic history summarized under the names listed below. Many of the stages are named after certain marine animals (e. g., the Littorina mollusk) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and salinity. The factors that determined the sea’s characteristics were the submergence or emergence of the region due to the weight of ice and subsequent isostatic readjustment, and the connecting channels it could find to the North Sea-Atlantic either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea-Arctic Sea.
- Eemian sea, 130,000-115,000 BP
- Baltic ice lake, 12,600-10,300 BP
- Yoldian sea, 10,300-9500 BP
- Ancylus lake, 9500-8000 BP
- Mastogloia sea 8000 BP-7500 BP
- Littorina sea, 7500-4000 BP
- Post-littorina sea 4000 BP-current

Prehistory

History

At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea when the ice on the Baltic Sea broke apart and chunks floated about. The Sarmatian tribes inhabited Eastern Europe and southern Russia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work the Getica. Since the Viking age, the Scandinavians have called it "the Eastern Lake" (Austmarr, "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr), but Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name Gandvik, "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. (Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.) In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores. The bordering countries have traditionally provided lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp, and furs. Sweden had from early medieval times also a flourishing mining industry, especially on iron ore and silver. Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. All this has provided for rich trading since the Roman times. In the early Middle Ages, Vikings of Scandinavia fought for power over the sea with Slavic Pomeranians. The Vikings used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually all the way to Black Sea and southern Russia. Lands next to the sea's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: Finland in the 12th century by the Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early 13th century by the Danes and the Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The powerful German Teutonic Knights gained control over most of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, while fighting the Poles, the Danes, the Swedes, the Russians of ancient Novgorod, and the Lithuanians (latest of all Europeans to convert to Christianity). Later on, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe became the Hanseatic league, which used the Baltic Sea to establish trade routes between its member cities. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Poland, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici (Ruling over the Baltic Sea). Eventually, it was the Swedish empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum (Our Baltic Sea). In the 18th century Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially the eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax and hemp. During the Crimean War a joint fleet of Britain and France attacked Russian fortresses by bombarding Sveaborg that guards Helsinki and Kronstadt that guards Saint Petersburg and destroying Bomarsund in the Åland Islands. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. The First World War was fought also on the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland returned to the Baltic Sea, and Polish ports of Gdynia and Gdańsk became leading ports of the Baltic. During the Second World War Germany reclaimed all of the southern shore and much of the eastern by occupying Poland and the Baltic states. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for drowned people on torpedoed refugee ships. As of 2004, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster of all time, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over 5,000 airplane wrecks, sunken warships, etc., (mainly from the Second World War) lying in the bottom of the sea. After 1945 the sea was a border between conflicted military blocks: in case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade Danish isles. In May 2004, the Baltic Sea became almost completely a European Union internal sea when the Baltic states and Poland became parts of the European Union, leaving only the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg and the exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast as non-EU areas. The Baltic Sea starts to get very rough with the October storms. These winter storms have been the cause of many shipwrecks, for example, the sinking of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden in 1994 that claimed the lives of hundreds. But thanks to the cold brackish water where the shipworm cannot survive, the sea is a time capsule for centuries-old shipwrecks. Perhaps the most famous one is the Vasa.

Biology

Vasa Approximately 100,000 square km of the bottom, ¼ of the total area, are a variable dead zone. The more saline and therefore heavier water remains on the bottom, preventing Oxygen distribution to it. Mainly bacteria grow there, digesting organic pollutants and releasing hydrogen sulfide. The bloom of algae is visible from the air. Since most oceanic species use the bottom for various purposes, which is denied over much of the Baltic, the ecology differs from that of the Atlantic. The low salinity of the Baltic sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The benthic fauna consists mainly of Monoporeia affinis, which is originally a freshwater species. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic.

Economy

Construction of the Great Belt Bridge (1997) and Oresund Bridge (1999) over the international waterway of the Danish Straits limited the Baltic Sea to the middle-sized vessels. In meantime, the Baltic Sea is the main trade route for export of Russian oil. Many of the neighboring countries are rather concerned about this, since a major oil leak would be disastrous in the Baltic given the slow exchange of water, and the many unique species. The tourism industries, especially in economies dependent on tourism like for example in northeastern Germany, are naturally very concerned. Shipbuilding is practiced in many large shipyards around the Baltic: Gdańsk, Szczecin in Poland, HDW in Kiel, Germany, Karlskrona and Kockums in Malmö, Sweden, and Rauma, Turku, Helsinki in Finland and Klaipėda in Lithuania. There are several cargo and passenger ferry operators on the Baltic Sea, such as Silja Line, Polferries, Viking Line, Tallink and Superfastferries.

Countries

Main article: Baltic Sea countries Countries that border on the sea:
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Russia
- Sweden Countries that are in the drainage basin but do not border on the sea:
- Belarus
- Czech Republic
- Norway
- Slovakia
- Ukraine

Islands and Archipelagoes

Main article: List of islands in the Baltic Sea
- Åland Islands (Finland, autonomous)
- Bornholm (Denmark)
- Gotland (Sweden)
- Hailuoto (Finland)
- Hiiumaa (Estonia)
- Kotlin (Russia)
- Muhu (Estonia)
- Öland (Sweden)
- Rügen (Germany)
- Saaremaa (Estonia)
- Stockholm archipelago (Sweden)
- Usedom or Uznam (split between Germany and Poland)
- Valassaaret (Finland)
- Wolin (Poland)

Cities

The biggest coastal cities:
- Saint Petersburg (Russia) 4,700,000
- Riga (Latvia) 760,000
- Stockholm (Sweden) 743,703 (metropolitan area 1,823,210)
- Helsinki (Finland) 559,716 (metropolitan area 980,000)
- Copenhagen (Denmark) 502,204 (metropolitan area 1,823,109) (facing the Sound)
- Gdańsk (Poland) 462,700
- Szczecin (Poland) 413,600
- Tallinn (Estonia) 401,774
- Kaliningrad (Russia) 400,000
- Malmö (Sweden) 259,579 (facing the Sound)
- Gdynia (Poland) 255,600
- Kiel (Germany) 250,000
- Lübeck (Germany) 216,100
- Rostock (Germany) 212,700
- Klaipėda (Lithuania) 194,400
- Turku (Finland) 175,000 Important ports (though not being big cities):
- Świnoujście (Poland) 50,000
- Ventspils (Latvia) 44,000
- Baltiysk (Russia) 20,000
- Hanko (Finland) 10,000
- Ports of the Baltic Sea

External links

- [http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/encyclopedia.html Encyclopedia of Baltic History]
- [http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/wrecks.htm Old shipwrecks] in the Baltic
- [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/pgi_en/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=4&Itemid=2 How the Baltic Sea was changing] - Prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/ Polish Geological Institute]
- [http://www.helsinki.fi/maantiede/geofi/fennia/demo/pages/oksanen.htm Late Weichselian and Holocene shore displacement history of the Baltic Sea in Finland] - more prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.helsinki.fi/geography/ Department of Geography] of the University of Helsinki
- [http://maps.grida.no/baltic Baltic Environmental Atlas: Interactive map of the Baltic Sea region]
- [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/ The Baltic Sea Environment]

Tourism links

University of Helsinki
- [http://www.zrot.pl Zrot : Official Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.zart.com.pl Zart : Polish Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.vorpommern.de Official German Tourism Site : Regional Tourist Board Vorpommern (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish)
- [http://www.ostseeland.de Ost|See|Land - Overview: German Polish- Tourism site (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish)
- [http://itameri.kyamk.fi/e.html The Baltic Sea Information Centre] (English, Finnish) Category:Seas Category:Baltic Sea ko:발트 해 ja:バルト海 simple:Baltic Sea th:ทะเลบอลติก

List of universities in Finland

- University of Helsinki
- University of Joensuu
- University of Jyväskylä
- University of Kuopio
- University of Lapland in Rovaniemi
- University of Oulu
- University of Tampere
- University of Turku
- University of Vaasa in Vaasa
- Åbo Akademi University in Turku
- Helsinki University of Technology in Espoo, in Greater Helsinki
- Lappeenranta University of Technology
- Tampere University of Technology
- Helsinki School of Economics
- Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki
- Turku School of Economics and Business Administration
- Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki
- Sibelius Academy in Helsinki
- Theatre Academy in Helsinki
- University of Art and Design Helsinki
- National Defence College in Helsinki Unlike the other schools in this list, the National Defence College is not considered a university by Finnish law. The practical effect of this distinction is minor, most notable in the administrative organisation of the college.

Municipalities of Finland

The municipalities (kunta in Finnish, kommun in Swedish) represent the local level of administration in Finland and act as the fundamental administrative units of the country. Municipalities have the right to levy a flat percentual tax, which is between 16 and 20 percent, and compromises two thirds of the total tax burden. Municipalities control many community services, such as schools, health care and the water supply. They do not maintain roads, set laws or keep police forces, which tasks are the responsibility of the central government. A municipality is governed by an elected council (kunnanvaltuusto, kommunfullmäktige), which is legally autonomous and answers only to the voters. The size of the council is proportional to the population, the extremes being 9 in Sottunga and 85 in Helsinki. Municipal managers (kaupunginjohtaja, stadsdirektör for cities, kunnanjohtaja, kommunsdirektör for other municipalities) are civil servants named by the council. There are no mayors in the English sense in Finland, although the city manager of Helsinki is called ylipormestari "Lord Mayor" for historical reasons. As of 2005, there are 432 municipalities in Finland. Of these 114 are cities, 44 are bilingual and 3 are unilingually Finland-Swedish, and 16 are in the autonomous province of Åland. In population, the median is 4723 (Taipalsaari), the extremes being 132 (Sottunga) and 559716 (Helsinki). Although there are exceptions, the line between a city and a small town or rural municipality can be drawn at Hamina with 21720 inhabitants. In the population ranking, above Hamina there are only cities (and their surrounding areas). The areas of the municipalities vary, as the population is the primary criterion for forming a municipality. The largest are found in Lapland, of which the largest is Inari at 17321 km² (130 km square). The smallest municipalities are very small towns. Kaskinen is an independent town with the area of only 10 km² (3 km square). Kauniainen, which was originally a corporation in Espoo, is only 6 km² (2,5 km square). Municipalities were originally parishes. The old word for a municipality is pitäjä, 'keeper', because when the system was instituted, one municipality kept one minister. Furthermore, there was a system of tax areas, which was not necessarily convergent. Furthermore, cities were chartered separately. Until 1977 municipalities were divided into cities (kaupunki, stad), market towns (kauppala, köping) and rural municipalities (maalaiskunta, landskommun). The market towns were abolished and renamed as cities. The rest of the municipalities were classified as 'other municipalities'. From 1995 onwards only 'municipality' is recognized by law and any municipality is allowed to call itself a city if it so wishes. There is currently a heated political debate in Finland about reforming the municipalities structure - essentially, the high amount of municipalities is seen as detrimental to the provision of public services, and there have been suggestions of reducing it. A workgroup led by Minister for Regional and Municipal Affairs Hannes Manninen has suggested creating a two-tier system of municipalities with different powers, while the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (Kuntaliitto) favours a system where municipalities would be units of at least 20,000-30,000 inhabitants (as opposed to the current situation where they may only have a few hundred people, like for instance Sottunga and Velkua). The motion has been inspired by a similar reform in Denmark (see Municipalities of Denmark).

Municipalities by regions

External links

Finland, Municipalities of
- Finland

Espoo

Espoo (IPA: ; Esbo in Swedish) is a city on the Southern coast of Finland. It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with Helsinki, Vantaa and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. Other bordering municipalities are Nurmijärvi and Vihti in the north and Kirkkonummi in the west. Espoo encompasses 528 km², 312 km² of which is land. The current population is 229,034 (as of 2005-06-30), in Finland second only to that of Helsinki. The first inhabitants in the area arrived about 9,000 years ago. The permanent settlement was established during the 12th and the 13th century. The King’s Road passing through Espoo on its way from Turku to Viipuri (Vyborg) dates back to the 13th century. The oldest preserved building in Espoo, the Espoo Church, originates from the 1490s. The administrative center (Espoon keskus) has grown around the church and railway station. In 1920, Espoo was a rural municipality with less than 9,000 inhabitants, 70 per cent of whom were Swedish-speaking. Of the whole population, 75 per cent made their living from agriculture. In the 1950s, a period of vivid development set in. The population grew rapidly, the building rate increased and the service trade became the most important source of employment. Espoo received its town charter in 1972. Due to its proximitity to Helsinki, Espoo soon became popular amongst the people working in the capital. The population grew from 22,000 in 1950 to 210,000 in 2000. The population growth still continues, albeit at a slower rate. The purpose of the city has always been to preserve nature, while developing, which has led to the creation of several local 'area-centers'. Espoo is thus divided into the following major areas: administrative center Espoon keskus, Espoonlahti, Kalajärvi, Kauklahti, Leppävaara, Matinkylä-Olari, and Tapiola. This decentralised nature has led to Espoo being jocularily called "Finland's only highway with city privileges". Another soubriquet is "Los Angeles of Finland", meaning no decent city center but a cluster of area centers. The Helsinki University of Technology is based in Otaniemi, Espoo along with a thriving science community that includes numerous startups and organizations such as VTT - the Techical Research Center of Finland. Nokia, the telecommunications company, operates from Keilaranta (and also from Karamalmi), Espoo, along with other high-tech companies such as Kone, Fortum and the mobile telephony branch of Elisa Oyj.

External links

- [http://english.espoo.fi/ City Website]
- [http://www.espootravel.com/xsl_etusivu.asp?path=5687 Espoo City Travel Website]
- [http://www.hut.fi/ Helsinki University of Technology] - located in Espoo Category:Municipalities of Uusimaa Region Category:Cities and towns in Finland Category:Coastal cities of Finland
- simple:Espoo

Vantaa

Vantaa (IPA: ; Vanda in Swedish) is a city and municipality in Finland. It borders Helsinki, the Finnish capital, to the north and northeast. Other neighbouring municipalities are Espoo to the west, Nurmijärvi, Kerava and Tuusula to the north and Sipoo to the east. Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen make up the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The most significant areas of the city are Tikkurila, Myyrmäki, Martinlaakso, Hakunila, Koivukylä and Korso. Its seat is in Tikkurila (or Dickursby in Swedish). Vantaa with its population of 185,429 (as of 2004-12-31) is the fourth biggest city of Finland. The biggest airport in Finland, the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is located there. It also hosts a science centre, Heureka. Vantaa encompasses 243 km², of which 1.90 km² is water. Population density is 769.93/km². The name Vantaa was taken into use in 1972 when the municipality gained market town rights. The first record of the area is as Helsinge in 1351 when king Magnus II of Sweden granted salmon fishing rights on the river Vantaa to the Estonian Padise monastery. On October 11, 2002, the city was shocked by the explosion of a bomb in the local Myyrmanni Shopping Mall, killing 7, including the bomber, a 19 year old Chemistry student from Espoo-Vantaa Institute of Technology. For more information on this issue see Myyrmanni bombing.

External links

- [http://www.vantaa.fi/ Municipality Official site]
- [http://www.heureka.fi/ The Finnish Science Center]
- [http://www.helsinki-vantaa.fi/ Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport] Category:Municipalities of Uusimaa Region Category:Cities and towns in Finland

Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council

The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (Pääkaupunkiseudun yhteistyövaltuuskunta, or YTV, in Finnish, Huvudstadsregionens samarbetsdelegation in Swedish) is a co-operation agency operating in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The organisation has a few responsibilities, most notably regional public transport and waste management. It is subordinated to the city councils of the four participating cities (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen).

Economy

The Metropolitan Council used €155.6 millions in 2002 and its income was €160.3 millions. Traffic and waste management make up 97% of its expenditure. About 70% of the income consist of customer fees for public transports and waste management.

Mission

The mission of the Metropolitan Council is to improve the capital area's development by high quality public transports, waste management and air protection. In addition a "development planning unit" has the purpose to increase cooperation between the four town-administrations involved, particularly regarding planning of land use.

External links

- [http://www.ytv.fi/english/ Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council] Category:Politics of Finland Category:Helsinki Category:Espoo

Waste management

Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal of waste materials, usually ones produced by human activity, in an effort to reduce their effect on human health or local amenity. A subfocus in recent decades has been to reduce waste materials' effect on the environment and to recover resources from them. Waste management can involve solid, liquid or gaseous wastes, with different methods and fields of expertise for each. Waste management practices differ for developed and developing nations, for urban and rural areas, and for residential, industrial, and commercial producers. Waste management for non-hazardous residential and institutional waste in metropolitan areas is usually the responsibility of local government authorities, while management for non-hazardous commercial and industrial waste is usually the responsibility of the generator.

Waste management concepts

Waste management has a number of different concepts, which vary in their usage between countries or regions.

The waste hierarchy

The waste hierarchy classifies waste management strategies according to their desirability. The term ‘3 Rs’, or ‘Reduce-Reuse-Recycle’, has also been used for the same purpose. The waste hierarchy has taken many forms over the past decade, but the basic concept has remained the cornerstone of most waste minimization strategies. The aim of the waste hierarchy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste. Some waste management experts have recently incorporated a 'fourth R': "Re-think", with the implied meaning that the present system may have fundamental flaws, and that a thoroughly effective system of waste management may need an entirely new way of looking at waste. Some "re-think" solutions may be counter-intuitive, such as cutting fabric patterns with slightly more "waste material" left -- the now larger scraps are then used for cutting small parts of the pattern, resulting in a decrease in net waste. This type of solution is by no means limited to the clothing industry. Long story short, treatment and disposal are the last choices preferred in effective waste management.

Source reduction and toxics use reduction

Source reduction involves efforts to reduce hazardous waste and other materials by modifying industrial production. Source reduction methods involve changes in manufacturing technology, raw material inputs, and product formulation. At times, the term "pollution prevention" may refer to source reduction. In the U.S., source reduction is valorized by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. According to the U.S. EPA, "Under the Pollution Prevention Act, recycling, energy recovery, treatment, and disposal are not included within the definition of pollution prevention [i.e., source reduction]. Some practices commonly described as "in-process recycling" may qualify as pollution prevention. Recycling that is conducted in an environmentally sound manner shares many of the advantages of prevention—it can reduce the need for treatment or disposal, and conserve energy and resources." (Source: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/p2home/p2policy/definitions.htm#specific) Source reduction is typically measured by efficiencies and cutbacks in waste. Toxics use reduction is a more controversial approach to source reduction that targets and measures reductions in the upfront use of toxic materials. Toxics use reduction emphasizes the more preventive aspects of source reduction but, due to its emphasis on toxic chemical inputs, has been opposed more vigorously by chemical manufacturers. Toxics use reduction programs have been set up by legislation in some states, e.g., Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon.

Extended producer responsibility

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is the practice of holding the producer of a product responsible to some extent for the management of the waste products associated with that product. The producer is responsible to recover products that contain toxic and hazardous constituents which may present a threat to the safety of the community and which may place a burden on the end-of-life management of the product, for example motor vehicles, whitegoods, tyres, electronic equipment and mobile phones. This concept has arisen in recent years due to the belief that an industry's responsibility for a product should not end with the sale of that product, but should extend to its reuse and/or disposal. EPR is often a voluntary measure within an industry, but in some countries it is a legislated requirement. (See "External Links", below.)

Waste management techniques

Managing domestic, industrial and commercial waste has traditionally consisted of collection, followed by disposal. Depending upon the type of waste and the area, a level of processing may follow collection. This processing may be to reduce the hazard of the waste, recover material for recycling, produce energy from the waste, or reduce it in volume for more efficient disposal. Collection methods vary widely between different countries and regions, and it would be impossible to describe them all. For example, in Australia most urban domestic households have a 240-litre bin that is emptied weekly by the local Council. Many areas, especially those in less developed areas, do not have a formal waste-collection system in place. In Canadian urban centres curbside collection is the most common method of disposal, whereby the city collects garbage, and or recyclables, and or organics on a scheduled basis from residential areas. In rural areas people dispose of their waste at transfer stations. Garbage collected is then transported to a regional landfill. Disposal methods also vary widely. In Australia, the most common method of disposal of solid waste is to landfills, because it is a large country with a low-density population. By contrast, in Japan it is more common for waste to be incinerated, because the country is smaller and land is scarce.

Landfill

Disposing of waste in a landfill is the most traditional method of waste disposal, and it remains a common practice in most countries. Historically, landfills were often established in disused quarries, mining voids or borrow pits. A well-run landfill can be a hygienic and relatively inexpensive method of disposing of waste materials. Older or poorly managed landfills can create number of adverse environmental impacts, including wind-blown litter, attraction of vermin and soluble contaminants (leachate) leaching into and polluting groundwater. Another product of landfills containing putrescible wastes is landfill gas (mostly composed of methane and carbon dioxide), which is produced as the waste breaks down. Characteristics of a modern, well-run landfill should include methods to contain leachate, such as clay or plastic liners. Disposed waste should be compacted and covered to prevent vermin and wind-blown litter. Many landfills also have a landfill gas extraction system installed after they are closed to extract the gas generated by the decomposing waste materials. This gas is often burnt to generate power. Generally, even flaring the gas off is a better environmental outcome than allowing it to escape to the atmosphere, as this consumes the methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). Many local authorities (especially in urban areas) have found it difficult to establish new landfills, due to opposition from adjacent landowners. Few people want a landfill in their local neighbourhood. As a result, solid waste disposal in these areas has become more expensive as material must be transported further away for disposal. Some oppose the use of landfills in any way, anywhere, arguing that the logical end result of landfill operations is that it will eventually leave a drastically polluted planet with no canyons, and no wild space. Some futurists have stated that landfills will be the "mines of the future": as some resources become more scarce, they will become valuable enough that it would be necessary to 'mine' them from landfills where these materials were previously discarded as valueless. This fact, as well as growing concern about the impacts of excessive materials consumption, has given rise to efforts to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill in many areas. These efforts include taxing or levying waste sent to landfill, recycling the materials, converting material to energy, designing products that require less material, etc. A related subject is that of industrial ecology, where the material flows between industries is studied. The by-products of one industry may be a useful commodity to another, leading to reduced waste materials.

Incineration

Incineration is the process of destroying waste material by burning it. Incineration is carried out both on a small scale by individuals, and on a large scale by industry. It is recognised as a practical method of disposing of hazardous waste materials (such as biological medical waste). Though still widely used in many areas (especially developing countries), incineration as a waste management tool is becoming controversial for several reasons. First, it may be a poor use of many waste materials because it destroys not only the raw material, but also all of the energy, water, and other natural resources used to produce it. Some energy can be reclaimed as electricity by using the combustion to create steam to drive an electrical generator, but even the best incinerator can only recover a fraction of the caloric value of fuel materials. Second, incineration creates toxic gas and ash, which can harm local populations and pollute groundwater. Modern, well-run incinerators take elaborate measures to reduce the amount of toxic products released in exhaust gas. But concern has increased in recent years about the levels of dioxins that are released when burning mixed waste. Until recently, safe disposal of incinerator waste was a major problem. In the mid-1990s, experiments in France and Germany used electric plasma torches to melt incinerator waste into inert glassy pebbles, valuable in concrete production. Incinerator ash has also been chemically separated into lye and other useful chemicals.

Volume reduction

This means various techniques for making the waste fit into less space and easier to handle in bulk. Usually achieved by compaction or fragmentation.

Compaction

The waste is compacted or compressed. It also breaks up large or fragile items of waste.
- This process is conspicuous in the feed at the back end of many garbage collection vehicles.
- See car crusher
- In landfill sites, the waste is often compacted by driving over it with a heavy excavator-type vehicle with spiked wheels.

Shearing

The waste is sliced with heavy metal shears.

Grinding

The waste is ground up by a hammer mill.

Resource recovery techniques

A relatively recent idea in waste management has been to treat the waste material as a resource to be exploited, instead of simply a challenge to be managed and disposed of. There are a number of different methods by which resources may be extracted from waste: the materials may be extracted and recycled, or the calorific content of the waste may be converted to electricity. The process of extracting resources or value from waste is variously referred to as secondary resource recovery, recycling, and other terms. The practice of treating waste materials as a resource is becoming more common, especially in metropolitan areas where space for new landfills is becoming scarcer. There is also a growing acknowledgement that simply disposing of waste materials is unsustainable in the long term, as there is a finite supply of most raw materials. There are a number of methods of recovering resources from waste materials, with new technologies and methods being developed continuously.

Recycling

Recycling means to reuse a material that would otherwise be considered waste. The popular meaning of ‘recycling’ in most developed countries has come to refer to the widespread collection and reuse of single-use beverage containers. These containers are collected and sorted into common groups, so that the raw materials of the items can be used again (recycled). In developed countries, the most common consumer items recycled include aluminium beverage cans, steel food and aerosol cans, HDPE and PET plastic bottles, glass bottles and jars, paperboard cartons, newspapers, magazines, and cardboard. Other types of plastic (PVC, LDPE, PP, and PS: see resin identification code) are also recyclable, although not as commonly collected. These items are usually composed of a single type of material, making them relatively easy to recycle into new products. The recycling of obsolete computers and electronic equipment is important although more costly due to the separation and extraction problems. The recycling of junked automobiles also depends on the scrap metal market. Recycled or used materials have to compete in the marketplace with new (virgin) materials. The cost of collecting and sorting the materials usually means that they are equally or more expensive than virgin materials. This is most often the case in developed countries where industries producing the raw materials are well-established. Practices such as trash picking can reduce this value further, as choice items are removed (such as aluminium cans). In some countries, recycling programs are subsidised by deposits paid on beverage containers (see container deposit legislation). Not accounted for by most economic systems are the benefits to the environment of recycling these materials, compared with extracting virgin materials. It usually requires significantly less energy, water and other resources to recycle materials than to produce new materials. For example, recycling 1000 kg of aluminium cans saves approximately 5000 kg of bauxite ore being mined and 95% of the energy required to refine it (source: ALCOA Australia). In many areas, material for recycling is collected separately from general waste, with dedicated bins and collection vehicles. Other waste management processes recover these materials from general waste streams. This usually results in greater levels of recovery than separate collections of consumer-separated beverage containers, but are more complex and expensive.

Composting and digestion

Waste materials that are organic in nature, such as food scraps and paper products, are increasingly being recycled. These materials are put through a composting or artificial digestion process to decompose the organic matter and kill pathogens. The organic material is then recycled as mulch or compost for agricultural or landscaping purposes. There are a large variety of composting methods and technologies, varying in complexity from simple window composting of shredded plant material, to automated enclosed-vessel digestion of mixed domestic waste. Composting methods can be broadly categorised into aerobic or anaerobic methods, although hybrids of the two methods also exist.

Composting and digestion programs

The Green Bin Program, a form of organic recycling used in Markham, Ontario, Canada, makes use of anaerobic digestion to reduce the amount of garbage shipped to Michigan, in the United States. This is the newest facet of the 3-stream waste management system has been implemented in the town and is another step towards the goal of diverting 70% of current waste away from the landfills. Green Bins allow any organic waste that in the past would have formed landfill waste to be composted and turned into nutrient rich soil. Examples of waste products for the Green Bin are food products and scraps, soiled papers and sanitary napkins. Currently, Markham-- like the other municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area-- ships all of its garbage to Michigan at a cost of $22 CAN per metric tonne. The Green Bin Program is currently being studied by other Municipalities in the province of Ontario as a way of diverting waste away from the landfills. Notably, Toronto and Ottawa are in the preliminary stages of adopting a similar program. The City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada has adopted large-scale composting to deal with its urban waste. Its composting facility is the largest of its type in the world, representing 35 per cent of Canada's centralized composting capacity. The $100-million co-composter allows Edmonton to recycle 65 per cent of its residential waste. The co-composter itself is 38,690 square metres in size, equivalent to 8 football fields. It's designed to process 200,000 tonnes of residential solid waste per year and 22,500 dry tonnes of biosolids, turning them into 80,000 tonnes of compost annually.