NewsFH Upper Austria, Steyr Campus

International Winter School in Lahti

Circular Economy and Resource Efficiency 11-17 March 2017, Lahti, Finland


This year we (Jürgen Bauer MeWi Mas, Nan Wu AT Bakk, Heinz Riedlbauer IPM Bakk,  Katrin Gschwandtner LTE Bakk, Melanie Skola IPM Bakk) traveled to Lahti (Finland) to spent one week at the Lahti University of Applied Science with 40 other students from all over the world. Apart from going ice swimming, hunting reindeer and rehashing our frozen bodies in a typical finish sauna, we had interesting lectures about recycling, waste management and reusing old things to create new and innovative goods. To give us a once-over, how the theory is adapted into the reality, we visited several companies like Patina and ISKU. One week before the journey started we had to submit a presentation about car recycling, which we had to conduct to Kuusakoski (a recycling company) during the week. Furthermore, on Monday we got the task to fit another exposure, but this time we had to work in small groups, having students from other countries in one´s team. Doing this exposure made it easy to come in contact with the others and at the end of the week, we knew everyone by name. These international group work was not only for us to improve our English skills and to meet people from other parts of the world, but also for giving PATINA an inspiration for future projects. Patina is a welfare- organization where people could bring their old things to, instead of throwing them away. The goods get cleaned, repaired and/or modified and are sold in one of their shops. Our exposures dealt with topics like “leasing washing machines”, “renting furniture” and “making electrical machines available for everyone”. 

All in all, these week was a great opportunity to learn more about recycling, energy efficiency and reuse of old things, in an international and relaxed atmosphere.