LostInTheWoods

I have recently got into a debate about littering and rubbish with some people in the UK. I feel there is no need to go into that here, but it did make me think that my attitude to household waste and recycling, and how it has changed since moving here.

When I lived in the UK, both Renee and I tried to recycle as much as we could, and I had a worm bin in the garden for compostable waste. We tried to stick to the three R's; repair, recycle and reuse.

Since moving to Sweden things are a lot simpler, and less effort is required to do all this stuff. I shall try to explain how all this works in a light and painless way.....

Most supermarkets and local food shops have automatic machines that accept plastic bottles/drink cans/crates of glass bottles to be returned through a "hole in the wall" machine and they are worth:

(double these values for American cents):
Bottles (5p-40p)
Cans (5p)
Crate and bottles (dunno, I buy my beer in 'English' bottles, but our guess is about £4)

The machine prints out a receipt with a bar code on it and the sum accumulated is deducted from your shopping bill when you give it to the cashier. This money is of course included in the price of the bottle of drink when you buy it. The amount is identified by a little icon on the label:

Bottle banks/paper/packaging/battery/can/plastic recycling centres are situated in residential areas, not in supermarket car parks (not everyone has a car see...) All dirty stuff has to be washed before placing in a bank - That's my job. At first this seems a bind, but you quickly get used to it, and it only takes a couple of minutes.

All food waste is disposed of in green plastic bags (for composting), and everything else in red (for incineration). The “green” waste is converted not only into compost, but also bio-gas which some buses run on. The incinerated waste is used to heat homes. All very clever.

About 100m down the road is my local recycling station, where we also have a clothes bank for old clothes. So everything is convenient and easy, and you end up doing all this stuff without even thinking about it.....

That is all.

LostInTheWoods