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Sweden runs out of garbage, forced to import from Norway
Sweden, a recycling-happy land where a quarter of a million homes are powered by the incineration of waste, is facing a unique dilemma: The nation has run out of much-needed fuel.
Thu, Oct 25 2012 at 9:30 AM
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Photo: Smath/Flickr
Sweden, birthplace of the Smörgåsbord, Eric Northman, and the world’s preferred solar-powered purveyor of flat-pack home furnishings, is in a bit of a pickle: the squeaky clean Scandinavian nation of more than 9.5 million has run out of garbage. The landfills have been tapped dry; the rubbish reserves depleted. And although this may seem like a positive — even enviable — predicament for a country to be facing, Sweden has been forced to import trash from neighboring countries, namely Norway. Yep, Sweden is so trash-strapped that officials are shipping it in — 80,000 tons of refuse annually, to be exact — from elsewhere.
You see, Swedes are big on recycling. So big in fact that only 4 percent of all waste generated in the country is landfilled.
Good for them! However, the population's remarkably pertinacious recycling habits are also a bit of a problem given that the country relies on waste to heat and to provide electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes through a longstanding waste-to-energy incineration program. So with citizens simply not generating enough burnable waste to power the incinerators, the country has been forced to look elsewhere for fuel. Says Catarina Ostlund, a senior advisor for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency: “We have more capacity than the production of waste in Sweden and that is usable for incineration.”
Public Radio International has the whole story (hat tip to Ariel Schwartz at Co.Exist), a story that may seem implausible in a country like garbage-bloated America where overflowing landfills are anything but scarce.
As mentioned, the solution — a short-term one, according to Ostlund — has been to import (well, kind of import) waste from Norway. It’s kind of a great deal for the Swedes: Norway pays Sweden to take its excess waste, Sweden burns it for heat and electricity, and the ashes remaining from the incineration process, filled with highly polluting dioxins, are returned back to Norway and landfilled.
Ostlund suggests that Norway might not be the perfect partner for a trash import-export scheme, however. “I hope that we instead will get the waste from Italy or from Romania or Bulgaria or the Baltic countries because they landfill a lot in these countries," she tells PRI. "They don’t have any incineration plants or recycling plants, so they need to find a solution for their waste."
Related stories on MNN:
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- Sweden's Mini House offers speed, sustainability and style
- The secret life of garbage [Infographic]
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hey, america has lots of garbage that it could stand to export...maybe we could make money off this! Go USA!
Here's a great new company!
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/recycling/blogs/sweden-runs-out-of-garbage-...
Sweden also leads the world in Geothermal heat pump use.
Why is the USA and other countries not doing the same thing?
In many cases the Swedish food waste gets turned in to biogas to fuel cars. That way the need for fossile biogas is reduced.
"Give me your garbage, your refuse, your messes yearning to be clean. The wretched refuse of your garbage strewn shores. Send me, your waste and rubbish stash, I light my lamps with your rejected trash." ( - a parody on the Statue of Liberty welcoming message, if you don't recognize it with my "adjustments" ;-) )
Eh, we can export garbage to Sweden at $1,000,000 per tonne -- which would take care of a quarter the US' budget deficit annually!
Okay, burning waste and getting heating/energy is obviously better than just burning waste like other countries do (or have done before). But are we sure is it a good way to recycle? I mean, in the end it's still about burning something that certainly contributes to pollution somehow.
Of course the best thing would be to have no waste at all but the burning is just the very first step in a complicated process that is mostly about cleaning the smoke that the burning of waste is causing. The smoke is not directly let out into the air.
Of course, as much as possible should be taken care of and recycled to something else than heat. I described what we do earlier. But too much is sorted to the burnable waste. If we consume less, we will have less waste. And before all houses are rebuilt to near-0-energy houses, we still need to heat them! All man-made things contribute to pollution, burnt or not.
I think Sweden is one hell of a country, And its people are the most clever on earth. The world should learn from them.
Fantastic! However we must remember that Swedes are just 9.5 million total. In India, each major city alone is 30 million, give or take a few. At that scale, implementing such a solution is going to require a massive effort. Hats off to the Swedes for leading the way.
I miss India! Although I don't miss the waste lying around everywhere. Or the cows eating coloured plastic bags. (I thought they were forbidden?) The "price" of development? India is a rich country, and should be able to take care of its waste in better ways.
Will I ever be allowed to visit India again??? I am on the black list. http://www.ingrideckerman.blogspot.se/p/mormor-to-bhopal.html
This is such a good article to read. I wish every nation could learn something from Sweden. Tried all my friends to recycle, they are just lazy! I wish they can import stuff from Asia where all developed countries dump their shit, and keep increasing landfills!
This is pretty phenomenal. I imagine the energy companies keep a tight lid on such attempts here in the States. Someday...
Why not starting to change ourselves here in US. They say " Be the change you want to see".
This Blog has wonderful tips about how to reduce waste. http://thegreenminimalist.blogspot.com/
We have also started to import garbage from Napoli, Italy. The Italian pay us to help then solve garbage/Mafia problem there!
No matter how you slice it, this is a big plus and Sweden sets quite an example for the rest of us. I wish my town would use garbage for energy. What they did was put some pipes in the landfill and those emit methane which is burned off - to keep the landfill from smelling so bad. Kind of half way there.
wow this is nice!kudos to Sweden!
I hopei can visit the country and learn a lot from them.
Maybe our country- PHILIPPINES can export trash to Sweden, bcoz that is one problem that our country is facing.
Let's also include in the exportation our dirty trash Politicians...! =)
Eiwhhh...!
Waste is proof that something is wrong in the society, it´s a true evidence. You can try burn it or bury it but still it´s an evidence of a society thats not sustainable. Waste means that there are product made that are wrong, we need a redesign these products so they will fit in to a modern sustainable world.
and Germany imports trash to keep its incinerators running ......so what about the toxic 21% bottom ash and highly toxic 6% fly ash residues of the mass burn process ? where do they dispose of that safely ? and incinerators produce 62% of yearly dioxins emissions on shut down and startup and when burning wet waste, and at what temperature are the mass burn furnaces operating ?
Well, well, well - this is not the full truth. Electricity is produced by water, nuclear power and a little renewable sources. We produce too much garbage because we live an unsustainable life - consume too much, throw away old but usable things, throw away too much food. Ingrid Eckerman, Sweden www.eckerman.nu
maybe we should forward this to our govt. give them better topics to talk about then women's bodies prior to election!
we are such a throw away society, who needs big oil?!
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