Swedish recycling

I had read many things before coming to Sweden about how the are really into recycling and being green. I was a little surprised at the work that was involved, it's not so bad, just took a few weeks to figure out their system.

First thing to tackle was to figure out when the garbage pick-up was. I knew we had a pick-up which some small towns even the states don't have, so I was excited to hear that, but when we first got here even the people Thomas knew were on vacation so we really didn't have anyone to ask about it. 

Here are our trash receptacles. The green one is at least half the size I'm used to, but it looked like the brown one was for recycling so it was fitting that it was almost as large since I heard they recycled a lot. We had lots of IKEA boxes from furniture we put together so I broke some down and put as much as I could in the brown container. 

 I saw this guy outside one day in the neighborhood and asked him what day trash day was. He didn't seem to understand English too much, but in the end, I gathered from him that garbage day was either on Thursday or Friday, so I had taken my chances and put the garbage on the street Wednesday night and I was so thrilled to see they picked it up earlyThursday morning. 

The next week I once again filled up the brown and green bins and took them out on Wednesday night. But they were not taken...I thought maybe it's a holiday, or during the summer their days are off, I figured that was why the man didn't fully know whether garbage day was Thursday or Friday... I left them out the next night and crossed my fingers...no luck! I didn't take them back in though because now I really didn't want to miss the pick-up day. Thomas finally googled it because by then we got our delivery from the states and he had to find out where to bring extra boxes anyway. From what he read it turns out that they come only every other week. So now not only was I down from the size I was used to, but it was only picked up every other week!!!

Now what I learned after is funny too. It turns out the brown container is not for recycling. It is for composting! Both Catherina, the friend that lives behind us with the two boys, and Magdelena that had us stay the night with her told us about it. Apparently you pick up compost brown paper bags for free at the grocery stores and you put your food in that then throw it in the brown bin. Of course if you recall, the day after garbage pick-up, we had the neighbors over for peel-and-eat shrimp which meant the shells would t be picked up for two weeks! Joke was on us!!! 

Thomas has found a recycling center to bring boxes, and I went there thinking there would also be a main garbage drop off for the shrimps, but no luck! It was only for recycling and they would not take garbage or compost, so the warmest summer in a long time, plus shell from shrimp equals smelly side of house. We came back from our trip to Norway last night and were excited the weather had cooled a little bit, so Thomas had our windows to the bedroom wide open and when I went to go to bed, of course you had the smell of shrimps in our room, because the trash was below!!! Not being picked up until Thursday!!!

These are the bags used for composting. 

So what do they do with all the recycling you ask? You have to separate it all yourself and bring it either to the recycle plant or the grocery stores have bins outside you can recycle at. 

The bin here on the left is for paper you use for packaging such as paper milk cartons, and the right side is for mail and newspaper. They also have plastic container bins for laundry soap co trainers and such, and glass bins and aluminum bins. But you have to sort these yourself either at home or when you bring them. It was fine today, but I imagine in the winter it will be cold:)

I asked Nina in Norway what they do and she showed me a little different easier system. They have different colored bags and the green plastic bag is a special plastic that is used for composting (I'm sure it helps the odor), and blue is for recyclables, and then you could use any other plastic bag for garbage. Their garbage plant actually sorts the garbage electronically by color so they can use the same bin. That is pretty cool!

I guess after recycling paper and plastic and all the food, there really isn't that much left over so I should have enough space every other week...we will see...

Magdelena told me that her town actually has an electronic system for measuring the waste in the bins at each address so when the dump truck picks it up mechanically it can tell if the correct stuff is in it. She even got a call when she didn't bring the brown bin out to the street because she had created her own compost pile...her town told her she had to inform them they intended to compost so the readings on the garbage would be accurate and they wouldn't be flagged...Also if you had a garbage disposal you were to inform the town so they didn't wonder where your compost bin was either. I wonder if I might get in trouble for throwing away boxes in the compost bin the first couple of weeks...to be continued:)