Sweden has a very unique issue; they have no more trash. The issue is they burn trash to make energy for their population, an idea that has been tossed around in the U.S. but isn’t widely used, yet. The real issue is that they are too efficient at recycling, with only 4% of waste going to the landfill. The landfill waste is then converted to energy (specifically electricity and heat for Swedes). Could you imagine if only 4% of our waste went to the landfill? That just seems impossible for us. It also excites me that maybe we could learn something from the Swedes and become more efficient with our waste.
In order to get around the problem Sweden is now importing trash from Norway. I wonder what will happen though if more countries get on board with the Swedish plan and all our trash is remarkably reduced. Where will they get their trash from then? Maybe the U.S. can start shipping over trash too, since we seem to be swimming in it currently.
While burning trash is a good energy source it doesn’t seem sustainable long-term. I would think a country working on being more sustainable and using trash for energy would make changes in other areas too (such as efficient recycling, reduction of overall waste, etc.). This means that while it is effective to burn trash early on, it may not be a good source once your country is actually sustainable. At least it cannot be the only means of energy production. I wonder if Sweden has looked at other options (solar, geothermal, wind, etc) to help supplement their trash burning.
I looked into where Sweden gets its energy and it seems that trash burning is only a small portion (maybe 12 % when looking at the pie chart) and that hydropower is their main source of energy (50%). Perhaps instead of importing trash from Norway, maybe they could try to cut back their energy use enough that they don’t even need to burn trash. It seems that Sweden is already ahead of the game when it comes to waste management, I would think they could reduce their overall energy consumption to just eliminate their need for trash. Or reduce it enough that they only need the trash they produce as a country. Then maybe they could say they are truly sustainable.
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