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Sweden's Waste food policy |
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According to a recent report by UNEP and WRI, about one-third of all food produced worldwide worth around $1 trillion gets wasted. This means about ?intended for consumption is never consumed. Sweden government, recognizing this problem, questioned if wasted food can turn into something useful – new products, raw materials, gas or heat. Sweden is taking step by step to solve this problem. Every month 993,000kg of food waste is gathered by the city of Stockholm. The waste is turned into 115,000 m3 of gas, which buses and taxis use as fuel. This is achieved by cooperation of Sweden?s household, which recycles 99 percent of food waste. This was possible because recycling stations are by rule no more than 300m from any household. Majority separates and deposits food waste. Hans Naess, a Swedish food entrepreneur, further explains that this is due to Sweden?s food culture influencing them to have strong conservative way they have to eat everything up, and that in the culture it is very ugly to throw away food. These food waste recycled produce heat for over 810,000 households and electricity for 25,000 private houses. 2,270,000 tons of food wastes were burnt into energy. Swedish government suggests that waste is a relatively cheap fuel and that Sweden has developed a large capacity and skill in efficient and profitable waste treatment. They even imports waste from other countries. Another example is city of Malmö?s paper bags. In Malmö, people put food waste into paper bags, each worth of the gas enough to drive a car 2.5 km, and drop them into a plastic bin downstairs from where they go to make the gas that powers the city's buses. Editor Richard Orange explained that Malmö uses anaerobic digestion carried out by bacteria and other methane producing organisms to produce methane gas. The resulting gas is then purified so it can be used for a fuel. Through this process they were able to make tons of biogas, which they upgrade to natural gas quality. Credit to: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/27/food-waste-around-world |
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8 Comments
Thanks Yuna! In case of my country, south Korea, we tax food waste as well. A government official working for the ministry of environment once told me this kind of taxation is not very common and not many countries dare to try because of potential backlash from the public. This taxation has decreased the amount of food wasted. Just for your information :D
Posted 09-03-2016 16:18
Yuna, thanks for sharing Sweden's food waste policy. I believe other nations or cities can learn from Sweden and even consider adopting its policy. It is fortunate that technologies for creating energy source without carbon emission are being developed in various parts of the world.
Also, addition to technological development, I guess it is Sweden's own culture of not throwing away food that worked as one of the main factors for the policy to be settled.
Keep up the good work!
Posted 04-03-2016 17:23
Sweden's effort are great.Proper way to recycle food!!
Thanks for sharing Yuna.
Posted 03-03-2016 01:52
Sweden should be our base. That such an incredible and pleasent news to hear. So much of usages even from waste
Posted 02-03-2016 12:14
the government of Sweden has recognized the importance and benefits of creating a strong policy to accomodate and cater for food wastage. Many African countries like Nigeria should take a cue from this. This is very impressive!
Posted 02-03-2016 07:22
Such an innovative way to bring waste food to use .
Thanks for reporting yuna .
Posted 01-03-2016 22:27
Sweden has one of the best waste policies in the world. Kudos
Posted 01-03-2016 21:17
Thanks for sharing Sweden's food waste policy. It's really impressive that Sweden is already recycling food waste to produce gas. Great.
Posted 01-03-2016 17:06