Landfills are responsible for the release of toxins and harmful
substances into the atmosphere.
More than half of the world's waste, 59% in fact,
ends up in landfills.
In the US, they are the third largest source of
anthropogenic methane emissions, a gas 25 times more potent than
carbon dioxide.
Methane alone accounts for nearly 15% of the country's total
emissions and is associated with air and water pollution, as
well as biodiversity loss and land degradation.
But this does not apply to Sweden.
This is the only country in the world that recycles
all its garbage and in addition buys it from other
countries.
The Swedes have learned to make big money out of
garbage.
So how do they turn trash into gold?
We will talk about that in this video.
They say that it's not clean where they clean, but
where they don't litter.
But the Swedes managed to change it into it's clean
where they repair, share and recycle.
1% of that is exactly how much garbage ends up
in Swedish landfills.
According to the Avals Farage Swedish Waste Management Association, Sweden
now recycles more than 99% of household waste.
The recycling system works so well that almost all developed
countries that are not indifferent to their own ecology take
an example from it.
Why does this system work?
Not because the Swedes are some kind of aliens eating
garbage, or because the waste has mastered the ability to
teleport itself into space.
The system started working not yesterday, but in the 70s
of the last century.
Sweden, which has a harsh climate and is completely dependent
on natural gas supplies, decided to radically change the energy
situation.
Experts calculated that each Swede produced about 1 1/2 kilograms
of garbage a day, and given that 4 tons of
household waste more than compensate for the use of one
ton of oil, symbol logic led the Swedes to the
only right decision.
The country was seriously carried away by waste processing.
The secret of the Swedes was that while in other
countries this practice remained within the framework of an environmental
experiment, the Swedes approached it with all seriousness and practicality.
And since 2002, it has been strictly prohibited in Sweden
to dispose of waste from which energy can be obtained
into landfills.
Even the industry itself runs on garbage.
Swedish garbage trucks run on bio gas or electricity generated
from waste.
Waste incineration plants operating on the waste to energy technology
are replacing nuclear power plants in Sweden.
On average, such plants produce about 17 terawatt hours of
energy per year.
This energy is enough to heat a significant part of
the territory of Sweden.
And if a conventional thermal power plant needs coal, then
four such plants it is garbage that is raw materials
that cost practically nothing.
Solid waste recycling provides 20% of the heat in Swedish
homes.
The Swedes even accept garbage from other countries.
It is brought to them for free, for example from
Norway.
Neighbors are only too happy to get rid of garbage.
But for the Swedes, this is essentially an energy resource.
For every one ton of garbage, incineration plants receive $43.
For instance, in 2014, Sweden received 2.3 million tons of
garbage from Norway, Ireland, and the UK.
So in addition to raw materials for heat energy, Sweden
received the profit of almost $100 million.
But Sweden doesn't live off garbage alone.
The Swedes themselves admit that incineration is not that good.
Burning an old thing and making a new one consumes
much more energy than recycling.
In addition, burning garbage releases CO2, which exacerbates the greenhouse
effect.
Therefore, the population is strongly encouraged to sort garbage and
hand it over for recycling.
For the convenience of residents, sorting stations have been installed
throughout the country, located in supermarkets, municipal institutions and even
in the subway.
Now in Sweden, 48% of household waste is recycled while
the rest goes to incinerators.
For example, the fibers contained in paper are restored up
to seven times.
Plastic is recycled and used to make new things up
to seven times.
Waste recycling has opened up new business opportunities.
Some are selling battery derived lead, some are turning tires
into fiber for artificial football turf flooring and some are
turning old newspapers into eco friendly shovels to clean up
after dogs and cats.
Moreover, Sweden produces the most e-waste of any EU country,
around 200,000 tons annually.
Since 2014, all retailers of equipment in the country have
been obliged to accept broken obsolete equipment for recycling on
an exchange basis.
When you buy a new computer, you have the right
to return the old one at the same time and
get a discount.
Plus, the government encourages the sweets to repair household appliances,
shoes, bicycles, reducing the tax on profit by an amount
equal to half the cost of services.
The system of fines, explanatory work and active social advertising
help to accustom the sweets to conscious sorting.
In many kindergartens in Sweden, children learn how to make
garden compost from potato peels and other food scraps, and
recycling is generally a separate subject in the curriculum next
to physical education and music.
In addition, sharing services are actively developing, where instead of
buying things and owning them in splendid isolation, people share
everything they can, from cars and housing to skis and
bicycles.
It's reached the point where a whole new genre of
commercials appeared in Sweden, namely Pentamera, which literally means recycle
more.
A bright environmentally friendly future in Sweden means the so-called
circular economy.
As we weren't lying when we said that the Swedes
turn garbage in the gold, they make serious money on
it.
The classical approach or linear production is when we take
resources from the environment and return them back, but already
in the form of garbage in landfills.
The circular economy hopes to turn this straight line into
a circle by recycling all or almost all waste, reusing
that raw material for the production of things or energy,
and so on ad infinitum, as long as it is
expedient.
It is difficult to say whether the rest of the
world shares this approach, but the developed powers are trying
to learn from the experience of the Swedes.
So in Japan they learn to build islands from plastic.
The artificial island Odaiba in Tokyo Bay was created from
compressed garbage.
Parks, factories and airport, as well as an elite residential
complex are already located on its territory.
The Land of the Rising Sun is no less scrupulous
in its approach to internal ecology issues.
And now everything from sportswear to carpets is made from
recycled materials.
So far, many countries are still far from a waste
free Swedish life.
For this, they would have to at least reconsider their
relationship with plastic bags and refuse to take them at
the checkout in the store, even for free.
In other words, change their minds, discover the inner Swedes
in you, and the next time you go to the
store, take not a plastic bag, but a special grocery
bag shopper.