My Oulu: Where does all the extra snow go? Watch the video!

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Snowploughs have been creating high piles of snow, bringing joy to children who never seem to get bored of climbing on top of them.

Snow is now being hauled to five designated dumps in Oulu.

“The largest one is at Oritkari, close to the city centre, which is getting really busy now. We have lorries with snow arriving here every minute towards the end of the winter,” says permit engineer Mika Jutila from the City of Oulu’s Urban and Environmental Services.

Half a million cubic metres

Some of the piles at the Oritkari site were already over ten metres high in early March, and they’re getting higher all the time.

“Lorries have so far dumped 350,000 cubic metres of snow in Oritkari this winter. In total we have half a million cubic metres of snow across five dumps in Oulu,” reveals Jutila.

“The snow slowly melts in the spring and the summer. Depending on the weather we may still have snow in the middle of August.”

A lot of stuff hidden in the piles

The sites receive a deep-cleaning every summer. As the sites are popular with birds, the operation has to wait until the nesting season is finished.

“There’s a lot of stuff hidden in these snow piles. As they melt, we find a large number of keys, rings and coins. Also larger items, such as shopping trolleys and whole bicycle racks,” says Mika Jutila.

The snow dumps are primarily used by the City of Oulu but private individuals can also arrange to dump snow at the sites.

Full instructions in Finnish can be found at Ouka.fi.