Sweden: How they are successfully processing waste as a society

By Asako Takahashi

The sole purpose of recycling is to find a use out of piles of piles of waste that we, humans have produced. Sweden is one of the countries where eco-focused life is well promoted among their society. Zero waste world is the goal for our world and Sweden is almost there. Their household waste is almost 99% recycled.

One of the solutions for them is, as many other countries do, to burn them which turn waste into energy, something that can be reused. There are many cases in the United States, where waste that went into recyclable pile end up going back to landfills because there are unrecyclable elements mixed up in the pile. However, households in Sweden are doing good in successfully separating each trash. There are agencies that try to raise awareness of significance and importance of living eco-friendly and to prevent, first, minimizing the amount of waste and, second, contributing in sorting waste.

There are commercials between other other commercials, “panta mera” video gets played. ’Panta mera’ means recycle more and they try to put the importance of recycling into viewer’s consciousness.

There are companies that are joining the work of eco-society creation as well. The government and recycling agencies encourage businesses (producers of stuff) to create products that last longer. Also, H&M has been accepting clothing that their customers do not need anymore and distributing coupons for their products as an exchange.


Reference
https://sweden.se/nature/the-swedish-recycling-revolution/