How Sweden Plans To Turn The World's Trash Into Cash!
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At a time when most countries are struggling to figure out where to dump all the trash that is generated on a daily basis, Sweden is turning the other cheek - They want more trash. In fact so badly that they plan to import 800,000 tons of it from other countries. Intrigued? Read on . . .
In the 1940's, when most of the world had never even considered building a recycling plant, this progressive country began a program to incinerate their garbage and turn it into energy. While this initially released harmful toxins into the atmosphere, over the years, the country has perfected the technique so much that these have now been reduced to minuscule levels!
Meanwhile, the energy produced by these plants has steadily increased so that today, it generates enough energy to provide heat to about 20% or 810,000 Swedish households and electricity to 250,000. And, it gets better.
Thanks to intense public awareness messages, strict laws and an amazingly conscientious population, only 4% of all Swedish trash ends up in a landfill. In contrast 63% of the trash generated in the USA ends up in landfills!
However all this 'greenness' has resulted in a rather unique problem. While its incinerator plants have the capacity to process up to 2 million tons of household trash each year, it doesn't not enough raw material! Hence, the decision to import other people's trash - Something that is definitely not in short supply anywhere else in the world.
Neighboring Norway has already begun sending their garbage, while Bulgaria, Romania and Italy are seriously considering the proposition too. All in all, Sweden expects to import 800,000 tons each year. They are of course charging heftily for this 'import' - But we somehow think there will not be much haggling over the cost!
Now, if only all the countries could line up to learn how the Swedes were able to do what none of us can or really want to do, innocent marine animals would not have to deal with our plastic bags, bottles and everything else we dump in the oceans.
Resources: wired.co.uk, inhabitat.com, npr.org.
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418 Comments
- MMSTylerS11about 12 yearsSweden is not like other countries cause they want MORE trash. They want more trash because they figured out a way to turn trash into cash. I hope America and all of the other countries will find out the way to do this. So we can save the wildlife in the ocean. I love this because then we don't pollute the land plus the sea as much.
timabout 12 yearsi think it is bad because the earth is becomeingf trash its bad or the earth
potterfan1000about 12 yearsThe poor animals- >>>>>>>>>about 12 yearscurrent events too
- HNW0103203about 12 yearsthat is amazing i thing to do and i agree that we need to do that too. we are having problems to and this can probably solve one of them .
- MMSTaylorG11about 12 yearsSweeden is not like the other countrys trying to figure out where to put there trash instead, they want more trash. Why, because the recycling plants generate energy to provide heat to 810,000 housholds in Sweeden and 250,000 households with electricity to Sweeden residents too. Norway, and Italy have already begun doing the same thing. I think that the U.S should start doing this it'll help with saving money. A vocabulary word I learned was minuscule, the word means less.
- MMSJamesD11about 12 yearsEuropean countrys make garbage gone and into cash.I think that is brilliant.I really wish that us and other countrys could do that.we would be rich! In conclusion I dont know how they did it but that could and will make a huge difference in us and all the other countrys.
- Awesome Dudeabout 12 yearsThats convinient. Is that really Brack Obama?
- MMSMirandaS3about 12 yearsI've always thought about how they will get all the trash in the world. But now I know that sweeden figured it out. They are making electricity with it. So now they want more and more trash. I made a text to text canaction because in a different article it showed how much trash was cowering the world.
thumpsabout 12 yearsMy brother did this article as his current events.
