Waste in the Circular economy

‍Sophisticated circular waste systemsin the Circular Economy.

‍

Whatever brings your delegation to Norway, waste and water management is one of the areas where the region has built genuine, transferable expertise, not just in technology, but in the governance and collaboration models that make advanced systems work at scale.

‍

The Oslo Region operates some of Europe's most sophisticated circular waste systems, where food waste becomes biogas that fuels city buses and refuse collection vehicles, where residual waste becomes district heating, where plastic packaging is sorted optically and returned to the material cycle, and where wastewater sludge is transformed into biogas and returned to agricultural land as biofertilizer. The deposit return rate for bottles and cans exceeds 93%.

‍

From household to harvest

The circular logic runs through every step. Households separate food waste at source. Inter-municipal companies collect, sort and process it. Biogas plants convert organic waste into fuel and fertilizer. Treated wastewater sludge from the region's sewage plants, including the facility at Romerike Biogas Plant, completes the cycle by returning nutrients to local farmland. What enters the system as waste leaves it as energy, fuel and soil amendment.

‍

Carbon Capture from Waste – A World First

Oslo is rewriting the rules of climate action. At Klemetsrud, we are building the world’s first full-scale carbon capture facility at a waste-to-energy plant. We capture 400,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually—the equivalent of removing 200,000 cars from the road. By capturing biogenic carbon, we actively create negative emissions.

‍

Are you a policymaker, engineer, or investor? Witness the blueprint for future green mega-cities and experience the pioneering Norwegian Longship value chain firsthand.

‍

World-class facilities, accessible to delegations

Green Visits can take your delegation through the full chain. You will visit ROAF's advanced optical sorting facility in Lillestrøm, which also operates Norway's first ground-mounted solar park, using renewable energy to power the sorting process itself. You can visit ØRAS in the Gardermoen region, an inter-municipal company serving four municipalities that recovers close to 97% of all waste collected, and produces biochar through pyrolysis, a relatively rare technology with significant carbon sequestration potential.

‍

Infinitum's deposit return system – collecting over 93% of all beverage containers sold in Norway – demonstrates how well-designed producer responsibility schemes can achieve near-complete material recovery.

‍

What you will learn

• How national legislation and inter-municipal governance created the conditions for a high-performing circular waste system
• How public procurement has been used as a driver of innovation and market development
• How the circular loop is closed at regional level – from household waste to biogas, biofertilizer and back to farmland
• How wastewater and sludge management is integrated into the circular economy
• How world-leading technology companies like TOMRA and Cambi grew out of a system ambitious enough to demand their solutions
• How carbon capture on waste-to-energy is being financed, governed and implemented – and what that means for the 450 similar plants across Europe
• How Oslo became the first city in the world to pilot carbon capture and storage on a waste-to-energy plant – and what delegations can learn from the political decisions, financing models and public-private partnerships that made it possible

‍

Target Group

This program is particularly relevant for delegations from municipalities, regions and national governments working on waste strategy, circular economy legislation or infrastructure investment, and for private sector actors seeking to understand the market conditions that enable green solutions to scale.

‍

Don’t just read about the green transition. See it live in the Oslo Region.

‍

Ready to learn? Contact us to design a program for your delegation.

‍