Sweden Needs Your Garbage For Energy

We should definately learn it from Sweden where even the waste could turn out to be the most important source of energy, which the country uses for various purposes. When it comes to recycling, Sweden sets an example for the rest of the world. Thanks to a government prioritization on sustainability,the country recycles 1.5 billion bottles and cans annually, a staggering amount for a population of about 9.6 million (in 2013).

In terms of rubbish, Swedes only produce a measly 461 kilograms (1,106 pounds) of waste average per year—less than 1% of discard ends up in landfills. This is slightly below the half-ton average in the rest of Europe.

 

 

Sweden has run out of garbage and has been forced to import rubbish from other countries. Sweden, which sources almost half its electricity from renewables, was one of the first countries to implement a heavy tax on fossil fuels in 1991. It provides one-third of heat for households in this region.
Across Sweden, 950,000 homes are heated by trash; this lowly resource also provides electricity for 260,000 homes across the country.Sweden’s recycling system is so sophisticated that only less than 1% of its household waste has been sent to landfill last year. 

 

 

With Swedes recycling almost half (47 percent) of their waste and using 52 percent to generate heat, less than 1 percent of garbage ends up in the dump. “Sweden has the world’s best network of district heating plants” — essentially large ovens that use a variety of fuels to generate heat, which is then transported to consumers’ homes through a network of underground pipes — “and they’re well-suited for use of garbage.

 

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 extremely cold winter.

 

 

Here is the problem Swedes (as well as Germans, Danes, the Dutch and Belgians) have become so good at recycling that there’s no longer enough garbage to meet the heating plants’ needs. Sweden now has to import the trash that most other countries are trying to dispose of.

It’s not that Swedish decision-makers foresaw the need to safely dispose of garbage when they started building a countrywide network of district heating plants a generation ago, but it turned out to be a fortuitous move when public concern over trash in landfills prompted the country to rethink its garbage-disposal policies.

 

 

Sweden has become the world leader in energy generated from garbage; it is followed by, in order, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway and Finland.