Capacity Building & Workshops

Policy Area (PA) Hazards organizes workshops for capacity building and increased knowledge transfer between national authorities in the Baltic Sea Region.

Capacity building, knowledge sharing, and policy dialogues

PA Hazards organizes workshops for capacity building and increased knowledge transfer between relevant national authorities in the Baltic Sea region, e.g. on interlinks between the EU legal frameworks and harmonization of marine monitoring.

We also produce reports that highlights areas of common interests for regional and national stakeholders. Moreover, we aim to facilitating policy dialogues on issues of specific relevance for the Baltic Sea region, e.g. PFAS/ PFOS and Pharmaceuticals in the environment (PIE).

In 2018 a study on the effectiveness of measures applied in EU Water Framework Directive programmes of measures in in EU Baltic Sea Region countries was compiled and will support the PAs engagement in the recently launched BSR Water platform as well as the revision of the Helcom Baltic Sea Action Plan, BSAP.

  • Workshops and policy dialogues
  • A regional cooperation platform to reduce pharmaceuticals in the Baltic Sea
  • Study on effectiveness of measures applied in the WFD-programmes of measures of EU BSR countries for hazardous substances (pdf 361 kB)

Lund, 10 – 11 December 2019

Policy Round table on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PIE)

In March 2019, the European Commission published a Strategic Approach to Pharmaceuticals in the Environment. This communication could be a stepping stone to effective measures to reduce the risk from pharmaceuticals to the environment.

This policy round table aimed to

  • Raise awareness about pharmaceuticals in the environment in the Baltic Sea Region as a multi-sectoral issue that needs to be addressed at multiple levels.
  • Provide a shared understanding of the policy challenges but also solutions to these for addressing pharmaceuticals in the environment.
  • Identify priorities for action in follow-up to the European Commission Strategic Approach to Pharmaceuticals in the environment.
  • Share best practice and identify innovative solutions that could be harmonized across the Baltic Sea Region.

 

Stockholm, 19 September 2019

Macro-regional workshop on PHARMACEUTICALS IN THE ENVIRONMENT (PIE)– Monitoring, consumption, technologies and policies.

Pharmaceutical residues in the Baltic Sea are causing concern as the full impact for the marine environment is still unknown. The main pathway of human consumed pharmaceuticals to the marine environment is via direct discharges of effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) in coastal areas as well as via rivers carrying effluents from inland MWWTPs.

The objective of this workshop was to jointly identify common challenges and solutions for pharmaceuticals and the environment in the Baltic Sea region, with a focus on pharmaceuticals in Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP) systems.

This included

  • the need and availability of analysis and monitoring methods
  • Advanced WWTP technologies
  • Economic and policy considerations for technology choice

 

 

Stockholm, 15 – 16 April 2019

TAIEX-EIR and Baltic Sea Region-Workshop on circular and non-toxic reuse of phosphorus from sewage sludge.

The core challenge of sewage sludge and phosphorous is well-known. While phosphorous is a finite resource that can be recycled from sewage sludge, the practice of spreading of sewage sludge on land recirculates not only phosphorous, but also other elements – including those that are hazardous to the environment and/ or human health – back into the environment. Solutions to the sludge-phosphorus dilemma are contentious and invariably costly, politically or socially contested, and attract a wide range of competing interests from farmers, food industries and consumers of their products, to the waste industry and wastewater treatment plants.

Technology and policy are important to achieving acceptable solutions and were the focus of this workshop.

The workshop had a unique and overarching objective to inform a Swedish government Inquiry (more below) on a sewage sludge ban and concomitant phosphorous recycling requirement. This was the first time a TAIEX PEER 2 PEER workshop was designed to contribute to an ongoing national inquiry.

Besides Sweden, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic as well as the European Sustainable Phosphorus platform contributed to the workshop.

This workshop was followed by a seminar at the 10th EUSBSR Annual Forum in Gdansk and a seminar at ‘Baltic Sea Days’, an integrated part of  ‘Swedish Political week’ (Almedalen) in Visby, Gotland, 4th July 2019.

Berlin, 27 – 28 March 2017

HELCOM expert workshop on nutrient recycling in the Baltic Sea countries

The expert workshop will help to enhance the recycling of nutrient contained in wastewater sludge and manure in closed nutrient systems while preventing the spreading of hazardous substances, as well as identify common challenges in promotion of nutrients recycling in the region and possible next steps in a joint effort of the HELCOM countries to enhance nutrient recycling.

The workshop is organized by Julius Kühn-Institute and HELCOM in cooperation with the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Policy Areas Bioeconomy, Hazards and Nutri. 

As this is an expert workshop, participation will be possible on invitation only.

 

Vilnius, 8th December 2016

National Dialogue seminar - Lithuania

The Environmental Protection Agency Lithuania in close cooperation with the Coordinator of the Policy Area (PAC) Hazards, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, arranged a stakeholder and dialogue seminar aiming at introducing the PA activities and Flagships within the framework of the EU Strategy of the Baltic Sea Region to Lithuanian national stakeholders. 
The seminar aimed at exchanging about Lithuania’s interests and priorities in the area of hazardous substances in the environment and discussed how to: 
  • Bring together and create synergies between initiatives and actors from different sectors and levels of governance
  •  Promote cooperation between stakeholders in the Baltic Sea Region 
The dialogue seminar is an integrated part of the PA Hazards ‘Roadshow’ series that will be continued in other BSR countries throughout 2017.

Presentations and speakers

Presentations of PA Hazards flagships with Lithuanian partners 

Stockholm 2016

Political seminar: Closed loops for clear waters - Innovative sludge management solutions for a toxin free.

The seminar presented and discussed solutions for sustainable sludge management, aiming to turn todays waste into cleaner products, helping to minimize emissions of toxic compounds to the aquatic environment while achieving recycling of nutrients in a truly circular system: What techniques are available today? How to foster and up-scale innovation? What can and should policy do?

Date: 9th November 2016, 15:00 – 15:50

Place: Münchenbryggeriet, Stockholm, Sweden

Speakers & presentations

Moderator: Dmitry Frank-Kamenetsky, Professional Secretary, Helcom Secretariat

Presentations and Speakers:

Discussions will be continued at a Helcom ‘Nutrient recycling workshop’ 23 – 24 January 2017 in Berlin, Germany as a cooperation between Areas Nutri, Hazard and Bioeconomy of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

Cooperation partners

Further information

Copenhagen 2015:
Pharmaceuticals in the Baltic Sea environment

Pharmaceutical residues in the Baltic Sea are causing concern as the full impact for the marine environment is still unknown. Human and livestock excretion of drugs and metabolites following consumption, as well as disposal of unused pharmaceuticals, are pathways to the environment. Many pharmaceutical substances cannot be effectively removed by conventional waste water treatment.

The topic of hazardous substances is covered as main area in the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea region, EUSBSR. Under the Policy Area (PA) ‘Hazards’ this year’s activities are focusing on the topic of Pharmaceuticals in the Baltic Sea environment. Therein the PA is aiming at creating a dynamic network of relevant multi-sector, multilevel stakeholders from across the Baltic Sea region as well as facilitating cooperation, capacity building and policy development in the field.

The PA partnered with Baltic Development Forum and Helcom for this regional stakeholder event, which sought to stimulate innovative project ideas, solutions and approaches on how to prevent pharmaceutical substances to reach the Baltic Sea environment. The conference was held in Copenhagen 15 December 2015. It brought together 60 stakeholders for implementation with policy makers and funding instruments for knowledge exchange and policy discussions.

PA ‘Hazards’ was actively looking for innovative project proposals on applied technical and management solutions on how to prevent pharmaceutical substances to reach the Baltic environment and cause negative effects, including technical and management solutions.

At the conference the status report on Pharmaceuticals in the Baltic Sea environment was presented.

Policy representatives from Germany, Sweden and HELCOM presented their views on recent policy developments in the field and next steps needed from a national and pan-Baltic perspective.

In an interactive project development workshop participants elaborated six project proposals that will be further developed into potential flagships, highly visible transnational good quality projects, to be implemented in the Baltic Region within the coming years.

Cooperation partners