The tedious but most efficient recycling
While countries are considering how to dispose of their garbage or how many landfills to build, Norway's own garbage was recycled more than 10 years ago, all of which has been turned into treasures and reused as resources.
Whatever walking in Norway, which street, the minimum number of garbage cans are also seen side by side 3 (some places will be more, such as residential areas, schools, units, etc.), 3 garbage cans are basically divided into recyclable paper products, plastics, and non-recyclable life class. Cities, neighborhoods of the garbage cans are not uniform, some are round can-shaped, some are metal box type, some and our country is the same, is a rectangular underneath with wheels.
Norwegian garbage sorting and recycling may seem complicated and cumbersome, but the actual results are excellent. In the Norwegian capital of Oslo, the streets are hardly seen discarded plastic bags or bottles of mineral water. The beautiful environment is inseparable from the Norwegian people's good garbage classification habits and environmental awareness, garbage recycling has become an important part of the Norwegian people's lives.
In Norway, residents at home in the kitchen at least four garbage cans, respectively, loaded with different colors of garbage bags, each garbage cans contain different categories of garbage, which is the local law. The four types of garbage are food, plastic, paper and other garbage. Food waste needs to be collected in green plastic bags, plastic waste in blue plastic bags, other waste in white plastic bags, and larger paper waste is usually put directly into the garbage cans without plastic garbage bags. In Oslo's supermarkets, people can get free garbage bags in different colors provided by municipal agencies.
The trash that is sorted at those homes goes to the incinerator, which is equipped to use computerized sensors to send it on separate conveyor belts to different incinerators according to the color of the bags. Distinguishing different categories of garbage with different colored garbage bags like this can greatly improve the sorting efficiency of the garbage treatment plant and also greatly reduce the cost of garbage treatment. This is also the reason why it is emphasized that garbage must be bagged in different colors as required.
As for bulbs, tubes and batteries, which do not belong to these four categories and require special treatment, the public can find two garbage cans at the entrance of the supermarket dedicated to the recycling of used bulbs, tubes and batteries. This way of recycling avoids the harmful substances in bulbs, tubes and batteries from polluting the land and water.
Also, recyclable drink bottles and cans can be exchanged for money if you don't want to throw them away. Norwegians are accustomed to not throwing away this trash that can be exchanged for money, so of course you won't see it when you walk down the street.
Supermarkets are common shopping places, Norway's supermarkets are equipped with automatic recycling of bottles and cans machine, go to the supermarket when shopping, by the way, these can be recycled bottles and cans to bring. Recycling machines lead to the supermarket warehouse. While the public puts bottles and cans into the machine, the machine will automatically sort and return bottles or cans that do not meet the requirements. At the same time, the screen on the machine will display the corresponding amount. After the recycling is completed, press the "Confirm" button, the machine will print out the recycling amount of the bill. With this receipt, the public can directly credit the corresponding amount of cash at the checkout, or with the receipt to the bank to exchange for local currency. The whole process is unsupervised and computerized.
Based on the material and weight of bottles or cans, the public can get 1 Norwegian kroner or 2.5 Norwegian kroner for each bottle or can recycling (about RMB 0.8 yuan? 2 yuan), the locals do not call this money is "selling rags of money", this money is the rightful return to the consumer's "deposit fee". The money is a "bottle deposit fee" that is rightfully returned to the consumer. The public recycling of discarded bottles will be transported by the supermarket to the recycling station, and then by the recycling station on the garbage treatment and reuse.
Waste recycling and energy conversion go hand in hand
"We're happy to import garbage from the U.S., and the price of shipping is very low." Pal Mikkelsen, a mechanical engineer, said. For the past year, he has been head of the Oslo Waste Energy Agency. His office is on the edge of a small town where garbage is converted into heat and electricity.
In many parts of the world, garbage is just garbage, yet in Oslo, garbage is technologically advanced. Oslo is so focused on recycling that about half of the city's customers and the vast majority of its schools buy and use heat energy converted from burning garbage. Here, all waste can be utilized, such as household waste, industrial waste and even toxic and dangerous medical waste. With more waste being utilized, there is no longer enough waste to burn for heat and power.
"Scandinavia has a huge capacity to generate electricity." Pal Mikkelsen said the well-living Nordics produce only 150 million tons of garbage a year. That's too little for waste incineration plants, which can handle another 700 million tons of garbage on top of that at existing incineration plants. "But the Swedes are still building more incineration plants, just like Australia and Germany." Pal Mikkelsen says he's a bit angry about this lack of consideration for the status quo. Stockholm has become a competitor to Oslo, an eastern Swedish city that has persuaded suppliers from a number of Norwegian cities to ship their waste here. Huge amounts of garbage are transported by ship or truck to Stockholm, where it is incinerated to generate energy.
In Britain, too, people often use trash in their lives. There are also a number of large companies in the UK that are involved in recycling waste, and more than 1,000 tons of waste is transported from the north of England to northern Europe, including Norway, every month. The tax that needs to be paid on this waste to landfill within the UK is more expensive than the cost of shipping it to Northern Europe.
Donna Cox, a spokeswoman for the British city of Leeds, said shipping the waste to northern Europe helps them cut costs by not having to pay rising landfill taxes.
Despite rich coal reserves and a network of more than 1,100 hydroelectric plants in water-rich mountains. But Pal Mikkelsen argues that in Norway, converting energy from waste incineration is simply an energy regeneration program to reduce the use of fossil fuels. So, despite the abundance of resources, Oslo will in the future use imported waste to generate energy.
Lars Haltbrekken said, at this stage of the environmental goals, first of all, should be to reduce the production of garbage, and then convert garbage into energy. However, people ignore the minimum goal of reducing waste and put the higher goal of recycling waste in the first place. Therefore, Norway imports garbage not only from Leeds, England, but also from other places. The future may produce a garbage crisis like Naples in Italy.
"Waste recycling and energy conversion must go hand in hand." According to Rooth Olbergsveen, a staff member at the Oslo garbage collection agency. Waste recycling involves separating organic waste, such as kitchen waste, which can be used to produce biogas. The biogas produced now powers some buses in downtown Oslo.
Who's embarrassed by the garbage fight
Oslo, with a population of about 1.4 million people, is worried about the lack of garbage - no garbage means no fuel, and a lack of heating and even power for the city ensues, according to a report in The New York Times.
Norway is not short on resources - it is one of the world's top 10 oil and gas exporters - but it is actively promoting renewable energy. In the past decade, waste incineration heating and power industry in Norway has developed rapidly. It is reported that half of Oslo's heating comes from waste incineration. Although Oslo has imported a lot of garbage from the United Kingdom, Ireland and other countries, but still far from enough, now have to look at the United States.
Oslo's senior adviser on waste disposal, Haig Ruth, with the cost of importing garbage from the United States by sea is not high, is a good deal.
In fact, Oslo has a number of competitors, and cities in other Nordic countries, such as Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, are also importing garbage like crazy. Data show that the total amount of garbage produced by Nordic people in a year is 150 million tons, but the demand for garbage by Nordic heating and power companies is 700 million tons per year, a gap of 550 million tons. Sweden has announced last year that it will import 800,000 tons of garbage annually from abroad for winter heating. Ruth said, "There is a market for garbage in Europe, they are commodities that can be sold for money, and that market is getting bigger and bigger."
Northern Europe has the highest waste disposal technology in the world, with Sweden having the best waste disposal system, the report said.
Almost every Swede knows that "garbage is energy, and 4 tons of garbage is equal to 1 ton of oil," and this is all thanks to Sweden's advanced garbage disposal recycling system.
Sweden has four levels of waste disposal: the first level of recycling; the second level of recycling difficulties, try biotechnology; the third level of biotechnology can not be dealt with, incineration; the last level of incineration is not even suitable, can only landfill.
European Union Data Statistics Committee data released in 2012 show that the Swedes made in the domestic waste, landfill non-renewable waste accounted for only 1%, 36% can be recycled, 14% of the regeneration of fertilizers, and 49% were incinerated to generate electricity for heat. According to the Swedish environmental protection department in 2008 data show that Sweden through the waste incineration can be 810,000 households for heating, accounting for 20% of the heating energy in Sweden, in addition to the remaining part of the energy for 250,000 medium-sized families to provide daily electricity.
At the producer level, many products with mandatory recycling require a deposit to be paid to the environmental protection agency before they are manufactured, which is only refundable if the product is tested to meet the recycling rate. For example, Swedish merchants in the production and sale of electronic products before, must have a comprehensive recycling process and equipment, and in the product description of the detailed labeling of how to use after this product recycling - the producer is responsible for, which is precisely the European Union for the recycling of electronic products developed by the environmental protection directive "on the end of life of electrical and electronic equipment directive," the core of content
Sweden
The Swedish government has also stipulated that the eco-standard will only be authorized for no more than 30 percent of products on the market. Each eco-label has strict regulations on the environmental impact of each stage of the product's raw material collection process, production process, distribution (including packaging) process, use process, all the way to the final disposal, etc., and the application is evaluated by an independent third-party organization. Environmental labeling standards set to the manufacturers to establish a system of healthy competition, but also inadvertently and gradually improve consumer awareness of environmental protection. Secondly, Swedish enterprises have excellent waste treatment technology. The world's first vacuum automatic garbage collection system was invented by Swedish engineers.
However, just when Sweden and Norway are fighting over imported garbage, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Construction, more than 1/3 of the country's cities are surrounded by garbage. The cumulative total of urban garbage stockpiles in the country has encroached on 750,000 acres of land. The "garbage siege" is like a contagious disease that has spread from the city to the countryside.
Experts point out that every country is now considering how to dispose of garbage, especially in China, where the garbage problem has affected the development of cities. And as the world is recognized as a better garbage disposal Norway has reached the point of importing garbage from other countries, it can be seen in the garbage disposal problem, the gap between the countries is still very large, China how to catch up with the level of Norway will take many years. "Nordic waste disposal is superior, reflected in two aspects. One is the higher awareness of the population, and the second is the end-to-end waste treatment technology." Environmental experts said that in comparison China's garbage industry market is also rising, according to incomplete statistics, China now has nearly 1,000 garbage power plants and hundreds of landfills. How to use these waste disposal industry as a market based on environmental protection, looking forward to the capital is currently China's garbage market is the most important thing to think about.