Switzerland tops the list: Households recycle twice as much as 30 years ago, according to the report

class=”sc-29f61514-0 jbwksb”>

30 years ago, the Swiss people collected 188 kilos of recycling waste every year. Now 365 kilos – double. The benefits of recycling have nearly doubled in the last 30 years. This is the conclusion of Swiss Recycling’s new performance report released today.

According to figures from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), 52 percent of municipal waste was recycled in Germany in 2021. There are no newer ones. In a European comparison, Switzerland has long been one of the leading.

A total of 3.3 tons of municipal waste ends up at the recycling collection point every year. The good news is that this number has grown faster than the amount of waste. Meanwhile, more is recycled and less thermally used. This means less waste is burned to produce energy.

The most waste paper, namely paper and cardboard, and organic wastes are collected. Waste glass and aluminum are most often recycled. You’ll be looking for plastic in vain in the numbers from Swiss Recycling because Switzerland lags behind.

less greenhouse gas

Recycling municipal waste saves a lot of CO₂ – 500,000 tons per year, the performance report goes on to say. For comparison: a regular holiday airline with 320 passengers would have to make 780 commutes between Zurich and New York to reduce this amount of CO.₂ fire

6.2 tons of municipal waste accounts for only a quarter of all waste. The largest pile of waste is generated at the construction site: 17 million tons of construction waste each year accounts for almost 70 percent of all waste. The recycling potential is high.

Recycling can save resources and save energy. Because less new material is used, recycling also creates secondary raw materials. In other words, a raw material can be reused, albeit in a different form, thanks to recycling. This reduces the environmental impact by 64 percent.

PET becomes tights

An example from recycling at home: For example, old PET bottles do not always turn into new PET bottles. There are now other food packaging and even leggings made from recycled PET. Recycled PET bottles can also be found on the shelves at Ikea, for example, on the Toftlund faux fur rug.

The EU has set a target of recycling 65 percent by 2035 – even more than Switzerland. Swiss Recycling emphasizes that the recycling rate says little about the environmental benefit achieved, as it is a quantitative rather than a qualitative factor. For something to truly flourish, “closer cooperation across the entire value chain” is needed.

Source :Blick