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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: 2) by tfried on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:16PM
I don't remember the last time I said to myself: "Oh no! I have to take a shit! That's going to cost *minutes* of my precious life-time!" :-)
Oh my, this is going to be my most anal post, ever, but similar thoughts are not unknown to me. In fact, my body seems to insist on timing my need to take a dump with the daily minutes of greatest haste, i.e. typically right after breakfast. This has in fact inconvenienced me to the point of planning ahead for the condition... During the same minutes, having to properly dispose of trash may indeed feel like a major hassle, and will occasionally be solved by simply dumping it (the trash!) in a corner and taking care of the mess later in the day. That's mostly due to the location and childproof closure of the next trashcan, though. Can't remember when I've last had to dedicate any perceptible mental or physical effort to the trivial task of separating my trash.