Recycling and composting are both important activities for reducing waste and conserving the environment. GreenPak, leaders of recycling in Malta, share the top role model countries when it comes to sustainability:

 

 

There’s no country as impressive as Sweden when it comes to recycling rates. Most of Sweden’s household waste – 99% to be precise - is reused, recycled or composted; leaving less than 1% of it having been sent to a landfill since 2011. Most Swedes separate all recyclable waste in their homes and deposit it in special containers in their block of flats or drop it off at a recycling station, which are generally no further than 300 metres from any residential area.

 

Newspapers are turned into paper mass, bottles are reused or melted into new items, plastic containers become plastic raw material; food is composted and becomes soil or biogas. If that weren’t impressive enough, rubbish trucks are often run on recycled electricity or biogas. So revolutionary is Sweden’s recycling, that it has run out of rubbish, which means it has to import rubbish from other countries to keep its recycling plants going. If that’s not impressive, we don’t know what is.

 

Germany & Austria 

 

Other countries winning in the recycling department are Germany and Austria, with 63%-68% of all waste diverted from landfills. Austria and Germany have a long -established recycling system, with most of their generated waste being either recycled or turned into compost. Education programmes and campaigns - a large part of GreenPak Malta’s mission - are all factors that have contributed to Austria’s successful development of waste management.

 

The rest of the world has much to learn from such cultures that look after the environment. Our aim should be to stop needing to send waste for recycling in the first place and promote the notion that there is much to be gained from reusing, reducing and repurposing. As recycling reduces the volume of waste which would otherwise have to be incinerated or disposed of at a landfill site, it is a crucial process worldwide and even more so on islands such as Malta where space is limited.

 

 

GreenPak is the largest waste recovery scheme when it comes to recycling in Malta. We urge everyone to join our mission to separate waste and increase battery recycling and bottle recycling in Malta. As part of our mission to reduce the amount of plastic irresponsibly discarded in our environment, be part of our ongoing ‘Crush & Win Campaign,’ which offers you the chance of winning €100 daily!