Passport

Recycling methods

Waste Information

Your new passport will come with a letter explaining how to invalidate and destroy your old passport.

To invalidate your old passport:

• destroy the chip by cutting through it: Cut across the identity page of the passport so that you cut through the chip on the right-hand side of the page. The location of the chip is visible as a square shape where the name of the issuing authority is.
• cut the front cover: Cut off one of the corners of the front cover of the passport.
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Invalidating your old passport is extremely important to protect your legal rights. If your old passport ends up in the wrong hands, your identity could be used for criminal purposes. the safest option is to destroy all the pieces of your old passport completely. 

If you want to, you can also return your old passport to the police.

Passport delivery - Police (poliisi.fi)

An expired passport, identity card or similar can be disposed of as mixed waste. Make sure that the chip in the document to be disposed of and the personal information, such as the personal identification number, have been destroyed to the point of being completely unreadable (e.g. by cutting the personal information page into pieces). Mixed waste is burned for energy in a waste-to-energy plant.