Incineration Versus Recycling: In Europe, A Debate Over Trash by Nate Seltenrich: Yale Environment 360 - 0 views
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recycling most materials from municipal solid waste saves on average three to five times more energy than does burning them for electricity.
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As it turns out, countries with the highest rates of garbage incineration — Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, for example, all incinerate at least 50 percent of their waste — also tend to have high rates of recycling and composting of organic materials and food waste. But zero-wasters argue that were it not for large-scale incineration, these environmentally Zero-waste advocates say a major problem is the long-term contracts that waste-to-energy plants are locked into.conscious countries would have even higher rates of recycling. Germany, for example, incinerates 37 percent of its waste and recycles 45 percent — a considerably better recycling rate than the 30-plus percent of Scandinavian countries.
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(In the United States, more than half of all waste is dumped in landfills, and about 12 percent burned, of which only a portion is used to produce energy.)
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