The essence of the circular economy is about reusing of waste materials: for example, organic materials must be returned to the biosphere without harming nature. This approach minimizes the materials and products quality losses, and in the long term, it provides a high life quality and the potential to meet human needs.The Center for Transboundary Cooperation in St. Petersburg and the University of Kansas Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies in Lawrence launched the Eco-Reps: Peer-to-Peer Sustainability Outreach program to promote the principles of circular economy and stable development.
Only four Russian projects from Petrozavodsk, Omsk and St. Petersburg out of 45 submitted for participation in the Eco-Reps program managed to reach the final. The ITMO University team prepared a project of the student canteen food waste recycling into biogas and fertilizer on one of the farms of the Leningrad Region. As Artem Pastukhov says, the project manager, the lecturer of the ITMO University Ecology and Technosphere Security Department, the studies are based on experimental data, accurate calculations and mathematical modeling.
During the visit, the Russian delegates visited Missouri and Kansas universities, the biodiesel production laboratory, student experimental farm, plant for solid waste sorting, and also visited the "green" city of the US - Greensburg. In 2007 it was completely destroyed by a tornado, but the city was quickly restored, and became as environmentally friendly as it is possible. Some buildings in the city have a platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certificate. The designers of these buildings try to minimize the potential energy and resource consumption, the amount of waste, and for heating and electrification they use the renewable energy sources - wind turbines and solar panels.
"For the LEED certified buildings there is even a special carpet that is made to meet the requirements of the circular economy. It doesn't look like a single large piece, but sectors, which are easily replaceable. If the organisation that rents the place moves somewhere, it can return the item to the manufacturer, and it will be given to the new tenant," Elena Bykovskaya says, the postgraduate student of the Ecology and Technosphere Security Department.
Elena Bykovskaya notes that it is hard to transfer the experience of our American colleagues without changes. For example, in the US the majority of families lives in private homes, and can fully control the process of the waste formation and recycling. The system of the separate waste collection in this case is much easier to implement than in Russian apartment buildings. However, one can't give up the work within the concept of stable development: perhaps such projects don't bring any apparent momentary effect, but carry benefits for future generations.
"The program coordinators say that the Eco-Reps purpose it that all the projects should be implemented to the maximum. The participants should obtain some new contacts, share information with each other. We have been successfully conducting our project, but the purpose of the mutual visits is to help the colleagues to supplement their studies. We have learned a lot and plan to apply this experience in practice. American students from the Kansas, Missouri and Oregon universities will come to St. Petersburg for a return visit in late May," Anastasia Denisova concludes, the postgraduate student of the Ecology and Technosphere Security Department.