Waste dumping drives up costs at Liesjärvi National Park

Illegal dumping at Liesjärvi National Park in Tammela, southern Finland, is creating extra cleaning costs for Metsähallitus, Yle reports. The money spent clearing waste is taken away from maintaining visitor facilities.

Waste has been dumped at the park’s car park near Highway 2, including household appliances, treated terrace boards, a trailer-load of apples and containers of waste oil.

The apples could spread a plant disease known as mummy disease to more than 100-year-old apple trees at the park’s heritage farm.

At the end of August, the contractor responsible for maintaining the park collected a trailer-load of assorted waste from Kirkkolamminkangas.

Some cleaning is carried out during routine maintenance visits. Larger operations cost from a few hundred euros to several thousand euros.

Anne Halla-Aho, a recreational-use specialist at Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Finland, said the proper removal of a waste pile dumped at Torronsuo National Park last year cost more than 1,000 euros. She noted that all the waste could have been taken free of charge to the correct disposal points.

Electrical appliances are accepted by all retailers that sell such equipment, while small amounts of treated wood can be taken free of charge to waste stations in most areas. At Liesjärvi, the treated boards were left in the forest.

Halla-Aho said the costs caused by dumping may be one reason Metsähallitus introduced paid parking at four national parks and one protected area at the beginning of September.

Even a single item can cause substantial problems. At Pyhä-Luosto National Park, a 1.5-litre drinks bottle dumped into a toilet tank blocked the hose of a vacuum truck used to empty it. Repairing the truck and sending it back to the park for another emptying operation resulted in a bill of several thousand euros.

At some Metsähallitus locations, so much plastic waste has been mixed with toilet waste that municipal waste companies have refused to accept it. In northern Finland, sludge had to be transported to Oulu for about a year because the nearest facilities would not take it. The additional transport cost thousands of euros.

Jarmo Asell, an implementation manager at Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Finland, said the situation in Lapland was eventually resolved when a screen for removing plastics was built at a municipal waste station.

Halla-Aho said Metsähallitus filed a criminal complaint over the waste pile at Torronsuo, but it did not lead to further action because police had no evidence to pursue. Investigations are difficult when there is no surveillance footage or eyewitness evidence.

She stressed that littering is generally not a problem at Liesjärvi. Most visitors behave responsibly and leave no trace in nature. Metsähallitus nature destinations received more than 7.6 million visits last year, and the vast majority of visitors behaved appropriately.

“We have a great many responsible citizens and hikers who carry a rubbish bag with them and collect rubbish left by others,” Halla-Aho said. “But I think it should be an instinctive understanding among all Finns that nature is not to be littered.”