Recycling, not incineration, best for household waste – the debate continues in Sweden

Too much waste incineration could deter efforts to reduce waste, warns an official from Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency.



EDIE news service reports that the battle continues over whether municipal waste should be recycled or incinerated, with a director at Sweden’s EPA responding to a letter from waste experts warning that recycling and composting has no future.



Amongst the many good reasons for sorting your rubbish rather than simply burning it, Björn Södermark of the Swedish EPA told Miljöaktuellt, is the recovery of valuable resources along with reducing the volume of waste that society generates.



Incineration may be cheaper than recycling, but the latter offers energy savings in recovering metal and plastic compared with manufacturing them from raw materials, says Södermark.



The current shortage of incineration capacity means that incinerators should be reserved primarily for waste that cannot be recycled. On the other hand, if too many incinerators are built, it could discourage efforts to reduce waste, warns Södermark.



But a recent industry group warned that recycling could also destroy other measures to reduce waste, where some regulations on packaging countered efforts by the plastics industry to ‘lightweight’ packaging.