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posted by on Saturday December 10 2016, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the less-is-more dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by XivLacuna on Saturday December 10 2016, @07:19PM

    by XivLacuna (6346) on Saturday December 10 2016, @07:19PM (#439768)

    Assuming your paper products come from some fast growing source that requires a less intense bleach, you are better off just burning it for heat/energy rather than shredding it up, soaking it in water, bleaching it, and then mixing it in with new material to make paper products.

    The problem is that we use wood as a paper source. It takes too long to grow meaning we have to dedicate more land just to satisfy our paper needs.

    Modern paper recycling is just a racket to keep entrenched industries going at tax payer expense.

    Plastic should only be used for sterile medical uses. It should in no way touch our food.

    We'll be better off if we could reduce almost everything to just burnable or compostable trash.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:10PM (#439796)

    (((XivLacuna)))

    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:35PM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:35PM (#439807)

      Stop that. It's juvenile.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:23PM (#439827)

        You want juvenile? Go look at (((XivLacuna's))) profile.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by dyingtolive on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:50PM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:50PM (#439832)

          I'm aware. Call that bullshit out when and where you see it. Chasing a person around repeating the things they've been guilty of back to them doesn't solve anything. It just makes the site look bad.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!