The fact that we burn plastic in Sweden leads to large emissions of greenhouse gases. In many municipalities, all plastic handed in at the municipal recycling centers is incinerated, instead of being recycled into new plastic. But in one year, the number of municipalities that recycle plastic instead of incinerating it has increased from 101 to 121. This is shown by figures from the branch organization Avfall Sweden.
– That’s really good. But we think that even more municipalities should do it, says Jon Nilsson-Djerf, adviser at the trade organization Avfall Sweden.
A “system error” that we burn plastic
Waste incineration accounts for seven percent of Sweden’s total emissions of greenhouse gases and over 90 percent comes from plastic, according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
– It is still a system error. An incredible amount of plastic is put on the market. We have to create circular models and we and many others are working for that, says Jon Nilsson-Djerf.
One of the reasons why so much of the plastic is still incinerated is that recycling costs roughly twice as much as incineration.
– You have to weigh the increased cost against the environmental benefit, that we can avoid fossil emissions, he says.
The industry is asking for regulations
The recycling company Stena Recycling receives plastic from many municipalities. They opened a new facility last fall that accepts our old plastic waste. There, they have a capacity to receive 15,000 tons of hard plastic a year.
– It is about 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide if it were to be burned. Now we can instead recycle a majority of that plastic, says Jonny Wehrnlund, business area manager for plastics at Stena Reycling.
He believes that even more plastic could be recycled if there were clearer rules about new plastic products having to contain a certain amount of recycled plastic raw material.
– It would have created better conditions in general and facilitated major decisions about investments for new recycling capacity, says Jonny Wehrnlund.