Sweden imports rubbish from other countries due to an overly efficient recycling system

Less than 1% of household waste in Sweden has been moved to landfill since 2011, Independent.

Sweden is one of the pioneering countries to apply heavy taxes with fossil energy in 1991. Currently, renewable energy (wind, solar, .) provides nearly half of the national electricity.

Sweden is the leader if it comes to the ability to sort and recycle garbage, and is currently in a funny situation when it lacks garbage at the incineration plants, with the ability to supply electricity for 250,000 apartments and heat. heating for up to 950,000 apartments.(Photo: Getty Images)

"Swedish people like to immerse themselves in nature and care about what needs to be done with nature and environmental issues. In the long term, we do communication work to tell people not to litter the streets. to let us recycle and reuse , " said Anna-Carin Gripwall, communications director of Avfall Sverige, a recycling association of the Swedish Waste Management Agency.

In Sweden, private companies are in charge of most imports and incineration. However, thanks to the adoption of a unified nationwide recycling policy, the thermal energy from incineration will go into a national thermal network to heat every home in the cold winter in a Nordic country. like Sweden.

"This is the main reason we set up the network in each district, which is to take advantage of the heat from the incineration plant . In southern Europe, they only burn garbage to destroy, not to take advantage of the heat source for heating. Here, we use it to replace fossil fuels, " said Mrs. Gripwell.

The heating network of burning garbage also faces certain objections. For example, according to the paper mill manager, wood fibers can be recycled and reused 6 times before turning into dust. If paper is burned before this time, Sweden will lose the potential for proper and true recycling, when replacing unused reused paper with raw and raw materials.

Therefore, according to Gripwall, the goal is to encourage people to recycle and reuse themselves before sending waste to a garbage incinerator. A national-level campaign called " Miljönär-vänlig" has been carried out over the past few years towards this goal.

Ms. Gripwall described the policy of importing garbage for recycling from other Swedish countries as temporary . "There is a ban on landfill in European Union countries, so instead of paying expensive fines they send garbage to us to treat it as a service [at a lower cost]. They should build The garbage incinerator itself is like we are doing in Sweden , " said Gripwall.

Inside a garbage disposal plant in Sweden.(Photo: Getty Images).

Cities in Sweden are independently investing in advanced garbage collection technologies, such as automatic vacuum systems in residential areas to minimize the need for garbage trucks, or underground garbage storage systems. to free up the surface of the road and avoid the scent of garbage.