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Sweden is so good at recycling that, for several years, it has imported rubbish from other countries to keep its recycling plants going. Less than 1 per cent of Swedish household waste was sent to landfill last year or any year since 2011.
Well, it's not quite so idyllic as that (it sounds as if they're incinerating), but it's far, far ahead of the competition. As reported in The Independent (from a solidly British perspective, naturally) :
Why are we sending waste to Sweden? Their system is so far ahead because of a culture of looking after the environment. Sweden was one of the first countries to implement a heavy tax on fossil fuels in 1991 and now sources almost half its electricity from renewables.
[...] Over time, Sweden has implemented a cohesive national recycling policy so that even though private companies undertake most of the business of importing and burning waste, the energy goes into a national heating network to heat homes through the freezing Swedish winter. “That's a key reason that we have this district network, so we can make use of the heating from the waste plants. [...]”
So they don't actually recycle, but they barely need landfills, and “In the UK, each local authority has its own system, making it difficult for residents to be confident about what they can recycle and where.” Sounds like the U.S., dunnit?
(Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Saturday December 10 2016, @07:16PM
It is not really, only, amazing levels of actual recycling that are behind it. What they are doing is burning non-compostable or non-hazardous waste for heat in a district heating (fjärrvärme) system that most towns have. What they have done is that they have built systems that are a tad to large for their actual needs, leaving room to grow. But to reach optimal burn and efficiency they lack waste to burn. So what happens then with various recycling and composting efforts is that there is less normal waste to burn so they have to import it or they would have to burn other things such as (wood) pellets or natural gas. But as long as importing waste is cheaper then burning wood pellets that is what they’ll do.
That said tho there is large segment of the population that is quite into composting and recycling. I would think that a large part of it is also that companies are required by law to take back item when you buy a new large item such as a TV or a refrigerator. There are usually in most town several drop of points where you can drop of broken or obsolete items. There is also a large second-hand market for everything from electronics to clothing and furniture.