Forward thinking in Norway!

June 22, 2010
Our first morning in Tromsø (pronounced Trum-sa) was of course, rainy and cold. In fact, the newspaper said this has been the coldest June in 28 years! But, as the Norwegians say, "There is no such thing as bad weather. Just bad clothing."

Today was our introduction into some of Tromsø's industry including the Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine and Remiks. It was an interesting morning/afternoon learning about how technologically advanced Norway is and the funniest part was hearing that Norway is in fact, 20 years behind Sweden!

Our host at the Norwegian Centre for Intregrated Care and Telemedicine was Gerd Ersdal, a medical advisor on staff. The Centre was created to research and explore telecommunication as an oppportunity within the medical field. To date, the Centre has connected the northern most hospital in Finnmark to the Centre via video cameras and Internet feed through a submarine-installed cable in the water. The Centre is developing telecommunication strategies as the next wave of medicine, allowing doctors to connect remotely with patients or smaller staffed hospitals and offer expertise and advice when needed. The Centre has also reached beyond the national borders, working with hospitals in developing nations through a program called Swinfin Chartiable Trust. The demand is there, the question is how to harnass it and use it in the most effective way. One interesting project the Centre is about to roll out is a diabetes study with 800 participants throughout the European Union participating in an electronic trial. Each participant is given a touch screen cell phone with an application that allows them to monitor their health, mood, food intake and other data the doctors need, all sent electronically. In the past, this Renewable Health initiative conducted small studies with 10-15 people within the region. This is a big test for the Centre and the success will help determine future projects.

After learning lunch at the Centre, we moved over to Remiks, the waste management company for the Tromsø area. This is my first time to a waste management/recycling plant, so I don't have much to compare to, but the operation here seemed very cutting age. Hilariously, the director of Remiks, Bård Jørgensen, said that Sweden was 30 years ahead of what was happening in Norway! In Tromsø, all residents are given free trash bags that are a thicker plastic and made in different colors. The residents are asked to separate their trash at home and put residuals in white bags, packages and light cardboard in yellow bags, organic kitchen waste in green bags, plastic materials in blue bags and papers in red bags. With the color system, the trash trucks - operated by one driver and a hydraulic arm - pick up all trash once a week. Before the color system was introduced, different trash categories were picked up every other week which meant that organic kitchen waste might be sitting at home for two weeks in the hot summer months. The colored bags are necessary because of the optical sorting system where bags are placed on a conveyor belt and different colors are separated into different bins. While Remiks cannot control what is placed inside the bags, they believe most of the material that comes into their facility is properly sorted into the right colors.

Remiks operates on a 140 million Norwegian kroner budget and is an entirely government-owned company serving 68,000 residents and handling 40,000 tons of waste a year. Another interesting innovation from Remiks and one will be implemented in all new construction is the automatic waste collection system. This is something that looks like a long fire hydrant on the street level and allows for people to drop their color-coded trash bags into the recepticle any time of the day or night. The sensor will go off when the recepticle is full and the trash will be automatically sucked into either a local dumpster or the recycle plant if the city is small through an air suction system. In the short run, this means $5,000-6,000 more per unit in an apartment building but in the long run, it means less expenses including trash removal, less noise from large vehicles and a cleaner neighborhood with no trash bins on the curbside. I wonder how this would work back home! Nicole, who has been a waste management plant in the United States, said she believes Philadelphia was considering an automated system so I'd be interested to see how that works out!

Interesting Tidbit: Do not crush cans because the sensors in the United States tend to work by size rather than material!