Igiri Innocent: Garbage for Cash, send them to Sweden; Trash turns Treasure in Sweden

Igiri Innocent: Garbage for Cash, send them to Sweden; Trash turns Treasure in Sweden

The biggest performer when it comes to sorting and recycling waste is Sweden. Right now, Sweden is in the rare situation of lacking garbage at its incineration centres, which produce enough electricity to supply 250,000 homes and heating for 950,000 homes

It is well known that 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.

A lot of countries in the world can only dream of such an effective system which is why they end up paying expensive transport costs to send rubbish to be recycled overseas rather than paying fines to send it to landfill. In Nigeria for instance, it is a crime to drop trash in peoples’ land anywhere.

Nigeria has made strides in the proportion of waste recycled under an AU target of 50 per cent by 2020. This has underpinned hundreds of millions of Dollars of investment into recycling facilities and energy recovery plants in Nigeria, creating many jobs. We’re not quite at that target yet. Recycling in Nigeria peaked at around 20 per cent of all waste in 2015. 

In the UK, provisional figures from the ONS have shown that figure has dropped to 44 per cent from above 45 per cent in 2014 as austerity has resulted in budget cuts. The decision to leave the EU could be about to make this situation worse. While Europe is aiming for a 65 per cent recycling target by 2030, the UK may be about to fall even further behind its green neighbours.

Why do we have to send waste to Sweden? Sweden has a culture of looking after the environment; that’s why their system is so far ahead. 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. 

Anna-Carin Gripwall, director of communications for Avfall Sverige, the Swedish Waste Management’s recycling association said that they firstly worked on communications for a long time to make people aware not to throw things outdoors so that they can recycle and reuse,

Undoubtedly Swedish people are quite keen on being out in nature and they are aware of what they need do on nature and environmental issues.

Ms Gripwell says “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. In the southern part of Europe they don’t make use of the heating from the waste, it just goes out the chimney. Here we use it as a substitute for fossil fuel.”

Ms Gripwall says the aim in Sweden is still to stop people sending waste to recycling in the first place.

“Miljönär-vänlig” movement, a National Campaign body has for several years promoted the notion that there is much to be gained through repairing, sharing and reusing. 

Ms Gripwall describes Sweden’s policy of importing waste to recycle from other countries as a temporary situation. She says “There’s a ban on landfill in EU countries, so instead of paying the fine they send it to us as a service. They should and will build their own plants, to reduce their own waste, as we are working hard to do in Sweden.” “Hopefully there will be less waste and the waste that has to go to incineration should be incinerated in each country. But to use recycling for heating you have to have district heating or cooling systems, so you have to build the infrastructure for that, and that takes time,” she added.

Swedish municipalities are individually investing in futuristic waste collection techniques, like automated vacuum systems in residential blocks, removing the need for collection transport, and underground container systems that free up road space and get rid of any smells.

Sweden’s heating network is not without its detractors. They argue that the country is dodging real recycling by sending waste to be incinerated. Paper plant managers say that wood fibre can be used up to six times before it becomes dust. If Sweden burns paper before that point it is exhausting the potential for true recycling and replacing used paper with fresh raw material.

And what will Sweden do if countries stop sending it rubbish to feed its heating system? Ms Gripwall says the Swedes will not freeze – they have biofuels ready to substitute for their exported waste.