Mikkeli is less than 1% circular (2019)
- Input circularity 0% 1%
- Output circularity 3% 7%
- Processed materials 1,910,299 tonnes/year 1,982,860 tonnes/year
- End of Life (EoL) waste 210,971 tonnes/year 234,929 tonnes/year
- Secondary materials 6,533 tonnes/year 16,624 tonnes/year
The most significant employment sectors in Mikkeli are human health and social work activities (23%), manufacturing (12%) and wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (10%). The construction sector employs 6% of employees in Mikkeli, which is at the same level as the corresponding percentage for the whole country (7%).
By applying the developed method, it is possible to illustrate that Mikkeli is a linear and carbon-rich city (90-95% linear), processing yearly approximately 1,300 kt of materials, adding 10-20 kt in the building stock and recycling just 4 kt of secondary materials in their economy. From these numbers, the magnitude of the efforts becomes visible. In addition, the "weight" of Mikkeli can be illustrated through its building stock which amounts to 15,000 kt (or 290 t per capita), which requires continuous flows for both its operation and construction. However most of its materials consumption is of its own extraction, so very little material is imported or exported. Most of the imported materials are of fossil energy carriers (84%) when exports are mainly of biomass materials (71%) such as timber, wood based materials and cereals. Domestic material consumption is high, which indicates city-self-sufficiency and therefore less GHG emissions through the need of material transportations.
Construction sector
As a conclusion, there are lot of manufacture of timber and concrete products in Mikkeli and considerable parts of these are exported outside of the area. There are also lot of forests in Mikkeli and nearby areas, so raw wood is obtained from very close proximities. Virgin sand & gravel and stone material is also easily available for concrete manufacturing and for construction of roads and buildings. However, other construction materials like metals, gypsum, bricks and insulation materials are imported to Mikkeli.
According to the calculation illustrated in Sankey diagram, approximately 300,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste are collected from extraction, manufacturing and use lifecycle stages, which could be potentially circulated in the city. There are many circular flows in the city but when looking at the whole picture, the flows are quite small in mass. On the other hand, all the data related to CDW collection and treatment is not currently available. Even 80 % of CDW collected by the most important actor, municipal waste management company Metsäsairila Ltd is recycled, mostly on the road and landfill structures. Metal waste is exported to recycling and timber waste is exported to incineration and energy recovery. The greatest potential for developing circular economy of construction sector in the city is to utilise materials collected as waste in upcycled higher-value products, which could replace virgin materials in the construction sector.
There are still many assumptions behind the distribution of material flows visualised in the Sankey diagram. In the future, the information may be updated based on possible new and more detailed data.
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Domestic material consumption561,715 tonnes/year
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End of Life recycling rate25.26%
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Amount of sector waste35,598 tonnes/year
Biomass sector
There are many circular flows in the city but some of the flows are quite small in mass. This indicates that there is willingness for circularity in the city but perhaps this is still quite new and in progress. All the different flows of biomaterial need to be better collected for reuse and recycling.
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Domestic material consumption906,983 tonnes/year
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End of Life recycling rate40.17%
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Amount of sector waste22,733 tonnes/year
Urban context
Do you want to learn more about the methods, reports or are keen to carry out an urban or sector-wide circularity assesssment for your or a different city and build your own Sankey diagram? Then check out the resources from Metabolism of Cities:
- Urban Circularity Assessment - Method
- Urban Circularity Assessment - Handbook
- Exisiting urban circularity assessment reports - bottom of the page
- Sector-wide Circularity Assessment - Method
- Sector-wide Circularity Assessment - Handbook
- Exisiting sector-wide circularity assessment reports - middle of the page
Do you have any questions about the dashboard, data or want to get in touch with a contact person from the city? Please email Metabolism of Cities at info[at]metabolismofcities.org for assistence.