Near Malmö, we popped in to see what the Swedes do with their rubbish. I took photos mostly for my daughter, as she and I are very interested in sustainable living, and, preferably, ZERO waste generation.
I don't know the words, but you can see how many different recycling categories there are.
It was appropriate that afterwards, back on the road again, the next photo I took was a wind generator. Roy said the noise can be quite bothersome for people who have to live nearby. Some liken it to a Chinese water torture or a dripping tap - whoosh ... whoosh ... whoosh ... whoosh ... all day, every day and all night too.
However to just see them as one
whooshes silently drives past in a car, I think they are rather stunning. Especially against the bright blue Swedish sky. Incidentally, someone told me that's where the flag comes from - the yellow wheat and the
blue sky. Makes sense. Except wiki doesn't mention this but tells me blue and yellow have been used as Swedish colours at least since King Magnus III's royal coat of arms of 1275. Perhaps King Magnus was inspired by the blue sky and the yellow wheat.
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| I promise I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to this photo. Isn't the colour AMAZING?? |
It looks rather confusing to have so many types of recycling. There are a lot of windmills here. I miss the old fashioned windmills like my grandfather had on the farm to pump water for the livestock.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's confusing Emma, but nice to drive out with nothing left in your car. The old fashioned windmills were certainly very picturesque.
DeleteRe-cycling is much the same here but we have to do ours in the rain.
ReplyDeleteWind farms are nothing more than a blot on the landscape, seascape and wherever else they can dream up to put them.
It was a long dry summer over most of Europe, that's for sure Adrian. I gather you don't like the look of wind generators.
DeleteRecycling is a mix of art, science and headache :)
ReplyDeleteIn the city where I live, we sort household waste into black or white bags (bio-degradable vs small burnable stuff), to go in bins just outside the house. Once a week, I walk to the next level of sorting station (5-10 min away) where we can leave newspapers, glass bottles/jars (clear in one bin, coloured in another), metal tins and lids, batteries, plastic packaging, and paper/cardboard packaging. Anything else needs to go to the bigger depots (or charity shops etc) - which is easier said than done when one does not have a car.
Ah, thanks so much for explaining that Monica. Yes, it seems a pity that the very leftovers need a car to dispose of. We are able to drop off cloth / clothing / fabric in the sorting station but are well behind being able to deal with some plastic. Sadly I have to tell you that up until a few months ago New Zealand shipped their plastic waste TO CHINA.
DeleteHave to confess that I'm not sure exactly where all our recycling stuff goes in the end. The paper/plastic is supposed to go to making new packaging stuff, I think. I think cloth/fabric is the hardest to get recycled (if not good enough to sell on second-hand). It has to do with so many clothes these days being made of mixed materials. (Like cotton mixed with synthetic fibres to make it more elastic, etc.) This makes it difficult and costly to recycle and reuse the textile fibres. Borås where I live is an old textile industry town and nowdays has a Textile College as well as a Textile Museum, and yet I think textiles is still low on our recycling list... :(
DeleteThat's a good point Monica. My personal journey (and my daughter's) is to buy only natural fibres these days. I am not actively throwing out my synthetics and mixes, but we wash them in spacial bags (Guppy Bags is one brand) so that the microfibres don't get into the sea. That way, at least from now on, my clothing, if not able to be worn, can be recycled easily. I do buy and wear or re-use old clothing from op shops and haven't bought new for a long time. It's amazing what excellent quality garments one can find in a charity shop if one checks the labels. My winter pullovers are all cashmere or angora!
DeleteI think I read that Sweden has special high temperature furnaces for burning troublesome plastics that cannot be recycled and also give off dangerous vapours when burned in conventional fires. I think you use the heat for power generation... I should do some more research.
I'm very much in favour of wind generators and tidal/wave power generators too. Having said that they should not be built near dwellings because the noise is very much like the dripping tap nuisance as you mentioned. Scotland was self-sufficient in wind-generated electricity (or perhaps it was water/wind) for one day not so long ago. That has to be a start.
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent start for Scotland and very good news. I feel, even with the disadvantages, it's the way we need to go. I'd like to see solar panels on roofs too.
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