Swedes recycle in record numbers
More and more cans and bottles are being reused or reclaimed for raw material in Sweden. Last year the average Swede recycled 163 beverage containers.
Last year 1,126 million aluminium cans, 271 million large plastic bottles and 281 small plastic bottles were recycled, according to new statistics from Returpack, a privately-owned company working to increase the recycling of cans and PET bottles in Sweden.
That amounts to 163 recycled metal cans and plastic bottles per person in 2013, compared to 154 in 2012. Recycling increased in 273 of the country’s 290 municipalities over the same period. The border town of Strömstad, where a lot of Norwegians go to shop, tops the recycling list with 2,511 recycled cans and plastic bottles per person.
The goal of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is that 90 percent of all metal cans and PET bottles in the country should be recycled.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Nunavut, Canada ends recycling program, CBC News
Finland: Finns waste less food than other Nordic nations, Yle News
Sweden: Limited heat recycling at Facebook server park in North Sweden, Radio Sweden
United States: Glass recycling gains momentum in remote Alaska, Alaska Dispatch
