In
truth Sweden is not "running out" but rather seeking more fuel because
it can. Unlike in Britain where most people have their own household
boiler, Scandinavian houses are almost always heated via a heat network
(fjärrvärme.) The remotely heated water is pumped to homes from a huge
central plant, meaning that energy efficiency is higher while cost and
environmental impact are considerably lower that if each house had its
own heating system. Town planners can do other clever things with remotely heated water, like run it under pedestrianised areas so that snow and ice can't form on the pavement.The number of energy plants that can turn waste into heated water for homes is ever increasing. Privately run plants receive money for using waste that is legally not allowed to go to landfill and then receive further money for selling their hot water to homes. Almost half of all waste in Sweden is sent to be burned at these energy plants. Consequently only around 1% of household waste is sent to a tip, and that's why all the junk news outlets got their knickers in a twist on slow news day.
Then the junk news outlets point out how great Sweden is at recycling. OK yes it's true, Sweden is pretty kick ass at recycling. People working together recycle a third of the stuff they throw away and the recycling culture is strong, every building has good recycling facilities and every person knows the rules. A combination of excellent public information, education and provision means that recycling is the norm, unlike in Britain where each council has its own set of rules about recycling, everyone has a different way to recycle and people are just generally confused about what they can recycle.
What happens when you say that Sweden is importing other country's waste and then point out that Sweden is very good at recycling is that people start to say "ah yes, Sweden is very environmental and is saving all these dastardly other countries from piles and piles of trash." Well, no. What Sweden is actually doing is BURNING GARBAGE and therefore dumping a load more CO2 per KwH produced into the air than it would from burning coal or gas. Paradoxically, Sweden transports household waste from Norway in trucks (that produce CO2) burn the waste in Sweden (which produces CO2) and then send the toxic ashes back to Norway (in trucks ...that produce CO2) for storage in a finitely available lime cave.
Waste burning is seen as a good long term solution to solve the problem of unsightly, toxic landfill sites but environmentalists point out that it should only be a short term solution when it comes to CO2 emissions and the release of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals from burning plastics. Some plastics which are currently not recyclable are burned, but these could be stored until a process is developed for recycling them. Furthermore there is only so much space for the ashes produced by burning the waste and, worse still, some Norwegians argue that making fuel from waste so profitable discourages proper recycling and causes Norwegian households to throw away things they would otherwise not.
There you have it then, a bit more complicated than it seemed before. On the one hand a very efficient and praiseworthy system for delivering heated water to homes and reducing landfill, and on the other a very high CO2 impact, chemical emissions and a short-sighted solution to a delicate problem. And while I did say that recycling is so much better in Sweden than it is in Britain, it's not all doom and gloom. There is in fact one area of waste management in which Britain does better than Sweden and that's composting. One day maybe we'll all put our heads together and come up with a comprehensive waste management system that shares the universal benefits and eliminates the bad bits. We can dream, eh!
No comments:
Post a Comment