Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




ENERGY TECH
Rat race over Scandinavia's household waste
By Pierre-Henry DESHAYES
Oslo (AFP) Sept 13, 2015


Norway and Sweden are locked in a tug-of-war over dozens of lorries that cross the border each day carrying loads of precious cargo: garbage.

Sweden is conscientious when it comes to sorting and recycling its waste and is in the rare position of lacking garbage for its incineration centres, which produce enough electricity for 250,000 homes and heat for 950,000 homes.

As a result, it has to import around two million tonnes of waste per year, primarily from neighbouring Norway but also from Britain, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Ireland.

"It's like a market," Weine Wiqvist, head of the Swedish Waste Management and Recycling Association which represents the industry, explains to AFP.

"Transporting waste from countries to other countries is a business driven by the balance of supply and demand."

It is however an atypical market where the exporters (municipalities and industries) pay the importers (incineration companies) to burn their "products".

Incineration companies have popped up like mushrooms in Sweden in recent years, pushing fees down, which has enticed Norwegian municipalities with strained budgets to look across the border to get rid of their waste.

This has led to some absurd situations.

The municipality of Voss on Norway's west coast sends its waste to Jonkoping, around 800 kilometres (500 miles) away in central Sweden, even though there is an incineration centre in Bergen just 100 kilometres away.

Norwegian industry officials accuse their Swedish counterparts of dumping prices, preventing not only their nascent industry from growing but also hindering efforts to develop an eco-friendly district heating network.

"Beer and tobacco aren't the only things that are cheaper in Sweden. Waste management is also cheaper over there," says Odd Terje Dovik, the head of the Returkraft incineration centre in the southern Norwegian town of Kristiansand.

"The Norwegian centres that could have burned this waste have to in turn import from Britain," he adds.

- 'Wasted waste' -

The transportation of the waste has an environmental cost, although the Swedes defend their practice.

"There have been a lot of calculations and research on this. And they found out that the transportation itself is almost negligible," insists Wiqvist.

"It's very little compared to the savings you make when you take waste away from a country -- where it would otherwise have been landfilled -- and you use it as a fuel because when you use it as a fuel, you replace other fuels like coal or natural gas," he adds.

Three tonnes of waste provide the energy equivalent of one tonne of petrol or two tonnes of coal, according to Sweden's waste management association.

While landfill methane emissions -- one of the worst greenhouse gases -- pose a real threat to the climate, Norway insists that the argument does not hold water since it, contrary to Britain for example, banned landfills in 2009.

"It has become so advantageous to burn waste in Sweden that the incentive to sort and recycle in Norway is eroding, so much so that the statistics are going in the wrong direction," lamented Dovik.

According to official figures, the recycling rate of Norwegian household waste (reuse, composting and biogas production) dropped last year to 37 percent from 44 percent six years earlier.

"The environment stands to gain a lot if the Swedish incineration centres went to pick up their waste in Eastern Europe, where the only alternative is landfills, rather than in Norway," Dovik says.

Despite a European Union directive aimed at limiting the volumes of waste sent to landfills by 2025, more than 100 million tonnes are still being dumped every year.

"A lot of waste is being wasted in Europe," notes Helge Ziolkowski of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





ENERGY TECH
SeaRoc and Natural Power helping EDF's Paimpol-Brehat Tidal Farm
Chichester, UK (SPX) Sep 09, 2015
SeaRoc and sister company Natural Power have joined forces to develop their offshore energy capabilities in France. This has now resulted in the two companies, led from Natural Power's Nantes office, being awarded a contract by EDF to oversee the HSE and marine operations for the continued development ofthe Paimpol-Brehat Tidal Farm which is being constructed off the coast of Paimpol-Brehat in N ... read more


ENERGY TECH
Russia Eyes Moon for Hi-Tech Lunar Base

Russia Gets Ready for New Moon Landing

ASU chosen to lead lunar CubeSat mission

Russia's moon landing plan hindered by financial distress

ENERGY TECH
ASU instruments help scientists probe ancient Mars atmosphere

What Happened to Early Mars' Atmosphere

Opportunity brushes a rock and conducts in-situ studies

Destination Red Planet: Will Billionaires Fund a Private Mars Colony

ENERGY TECH
New Life for Old Buddy: Russia Tests Renewed Soyuz-MS Spacecraft

Opportunity found in lack of diversity in US tech sector

Boeing Revamps Production Facility for Starliner Flights

In Virginia, TechShop lets 'makers' tinker, innovate

ENERGY TECH
Progress for Tiangong 2

China rocket parts hit villager's home: police, media

China's "sky eyes" help protect world heritage Angkor Wat

China's space exploration potential has US chasing its own tail

ENERGY TECH
Russian ISS Crew's Next Spacewalk Planned for February 2016

Mogensen begins busy ISS tour

Soyuz rocket with three astronauts launches towards ISS

Soyuz Heads to Space Station with New Crew

ENERGY TECH
US Navy to Launch Folding-Fin Ground Attack Rocket on Scientific Mission

US Launches Atlas V Rocket With Navy Communications Satellite After Delay

FCube facility enters operations with fueling of Soyuz Fregat upper stage

SpaceX delays next launch after blast

ENERGY TECH
Earth observations show how nitrogen may be detected on exoplanets, aiding search for life

Distant planet's interior chemistry may differ from our own

Earth's mineralogy unique in the cosmos

A new model of gas giant planet formation

ENERGY TECH
A close-up view of materials as they stretch or compress

A new type of Au deposits: The decratonic gold deposits

Bubble, bubble ... boiling on the double

Billie Holiday to return to New York stage -- by hologram




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.