Eva Blidberg is a marine biologist with a doctor degree in marine ecotoxicology. She has worked with different marine and/or chemical matters the last 15 years, and has since 2012 focused on marine litter at Keep Sweden Tidy. As project leader at Keep Sweden Tidy, Eva works with everything from beach litter picking campaigns to acquisition of knowledge in projects as BLASTIC and beach litter monitoring on behalf of the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management. She is also a member of HELCOM expert network on marine litter. Eva has a strong relation to the sea and a great interest of making the world a little better.
Ida Holmberg is working as a communication officer at Keep Sweden Tidy. Ida has a BA in communications and has worked with communication and marketing issues in the last 10 years. At Keep Sweden Tidy Ida is working with projects relating to school and pre-schools, nature and sea.
Hanna Haaksi is project manager for Keep the Archipelago Tidy leading the organization’s project work. KAT projects focus on three issues: marine litter, nutrients in the Baltic Sea and chemicals in the Baltic Sea. Hanna has worked with marine litter issues from 2012 onwards and she leads national marine litter monitoring clean-ups on behalf of Finnish Ministry of Environment. Hanna has always felt a strong connection to Baltic Sea, living by it and sailing there all her life. Hanna is passionate about her work and is determined to save the Baltic Sea.
Anna works as project manager at KAT, covering for Hanna Haaksi and having responsibility over all the organizations project work. Anna has a background in environmental communication studies at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) in Uppsala and a BA degree in human geography from Stockholm University. Through her studies and personal engagements she has been pursuing environmental awareness, focusing mainly on Baltic Sea related issues and sustainable governance of the seas. Anna's working languages are Finnish, Swedish and English. In her free time she likes to sail, travel and move outdoors. Anna describes herself as an archipelago child with great passion to work with environmental issues and promote sustainable exploitation of natural resources.
Atte Lindqvist works as a project coordinator at KAT. He has a M.Sc. in Environmental and Marine Biology from Åbo Akademi University, and has also studied ecophysiology and stream ecology at the University of Gothenburg. Before starting at KAT in September, Atte worked as a planner at the environmental protection office in the City of Turku. His interests include biodiversity, environmental awareness and avian ecology. Today he focuses on issues in the Baltic Sea and Archipelago.
Outi is presently focusing on various marine litter issues in Finland. Her background is in plankton ecology of unicellular organisms and her previous work includes studies on trophic interactions. Her present tasks include marine monitoring indicator development and studies on the impacts of marine litter to the ecosystem. Setälä has carried out joint international research on microlitter and microplastics and has good contacts with scientist working with marine litter both nationally and internationally. She is participating in several national and international research projects on marine litter issues, and is currently supervising one PhD work on microplastics and several MSc students.
Pinja Näkki (B.Sc.) is a Master’s student at the University of Helsinki and an assistant researcher in the Finnish Environment Institute working with marine microplastics. Currently she is finishing her Master’s thesis about the fate of microplastics in soft marine sediments. In the BLASTIC project she will participate in building a knowledge bank to the project’s webpages.
Harri Moora is a Programme Director/Senior Researcher at SEI Tallinn. Moora has broad and high level (more than 15 years) experience in environmental policy development and analysis, environmental management, sustainable consumption and production as well as energy/resource efficiency and sustainable waste management. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Technology, Tallinn University of technology, and a M.Sc. in Environmental Management and Policy, International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden. Harri Moora has been involved in numerous international research and development projects involving data collection and analysis, waste sampling and analyses. He is the author of a number of books and publications in the field of waste management and energy sector developments.
Evelin Piirsalu is a Senior Researcher at SEI Tallinn Environmental Management programme. Evelin has more than 10 years’ experience in sustainable production and consumption related issues and projects (GPP, product and policy assessments, etc.). She has a Ph.D. in Human Geography, and a M.Sc. in Environmental Science, both from Lund University, Sweden. Her recent work is related to marine environment, more specifically to valuation of marine ecosystem services. In the last couple of years she has also been involved with waste related studies. Evelin Piirsalu has also a broad project management experience.
Helen Saarniit joined SEI Tallinn in 2015 as Marketing and Communication Manager.
Prior to SEI, Helen worked on the communication team of the Estonian transmission system operator Elering. She communicated energy (electricity and gas) topics as well as organising international events and inaugurations. Helen has also been a Global Fellow at Boston University, worked for the Honorary Consul of Estonia in Milan and Alstom Italy, and been an intern at Cultural Agents Initiative, Harvard University and Wiseman, Hong Kong.
Helen has a background in international communication as well as music. She holds a Master’s Degree in Languages and Cultures for International Communication and Cooperation from the University of Milan. She is also a graduate of the Estonian School of Diplomacy.
Anna is a member of the waste group and has worked for IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute for almost five years. Anna works broadly with waste on a systems level, but has a particular focus in plastic waste collection and recycling, WEEE and C&D waste flows as well as waste statistics. Lately, Anna has put more and more attention to marine plastic litter, for example by taking part in a study mapping sources and pathways of Swedish microplastics to the marine environment on behalf of the Swedish EPA.
Environmental activist since 1998, currently chairing both FEE Latvia and Friends of the Earth Latvia. Founder of campaign My Sea (www.manajura.lv). Involved in marine litter issues since 2011, when FEE Latvia has started to work on marine litter with project MARLIN.
Monika Jasson (B.Ec.) is a Master student at Tallinn University of Technology and works in the Environment Department of Tallinn as a project manager since 2006. She is currently responsible for environmental education campaigns and increasing environmental awareness in Tallinn city as well Tallinn’s beach clean-up campaign. Monika has been involved in other EU funded projects such as “Regions for recycling” (R4R) and “Eco-support activity”.
Aleksandr Taraskin is a waste management division’s chief specialist at the Environment Department of Tallinn. He holds a M.Sc. in Chemistry and Environmental Technology, Tallinn University of Technology. He has more than 11 years’ experience in waste management. Aleksandr has worked in the Vaivara hazardous waste treatment center for 7 years. Currently he works with environmental pollution control and waste management development in Tallinn City. Aleksandr has been involved in other EU funded projects such as “Regions for recycling” (R4R).