Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use

NY Times ^ | December 10, 2010 | ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

[SunkenCiv]

Time to throw out 'myth' of recycling
by David Harrison
London Daily Telegraph
March 4, 2003

Throw away the green and blue bags and forget those trips to return bottles -- recycling household waste is a load of, well, rubbish, say leading environmentalists and waste campaigners. In a reversal of decades-old wisdom, they argue that burning cardboard, plastics and food leftovers is better for the environment and the economy than recycling. They dismiss household trash separation -- a practice encouraged by the green lobby -- as a waste of time and money... The Swedes' views are shared by many British local authorities, who have drawn up plans to build up to 50 incinerators in an attempt to tackle a growing waste mountain and cut the amount of garbage going to landfills... The use of incineration to burn household waste -- including packaging and food -- "is best for the environment, the economy and the management of natural resources," they wrote in an article for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Technological improvements have made incineration cleaner, the article said, and the process could be used to generate electricity, cutting dependency on oil... Recycled bottles cost glass companies twice as much as the raw materials, and recycling plastics was uneconomical, they said. "Plastics are made from oil and can quite simply be incinerated."

Thanks neverdem.

• Blasts rock Swedish capital - suicide bomber, shouted in Arabic before blast (unlikely to be Amish)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!