Making Waste Beautiful

For most people, rubbish or waste is considered ugly, smelly and – well, let’s be honest – pretty gross. But, as we tackle the challenges of developing a more sustainable society to repair the damage we’ve caused to our environment, the development of movements like circularity and circular design, and other innovative recycling solutions, are showing us that waste can, in fact, be made to be beautiful.  

If you need convincing, here are a few of the many exciting examples from around the world. 

Waste-to-energy plants – Scandinavia

Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, is the global standard-bearer when it comes to waste reduction through recycling. As recently as 2020, Sweden laid claim to successfully recycling 94% of glass waste, 34% of its plastics, and 78% of its paper waste. On average, only 1% of Sweden’s waste and rubbish is sent to landfill. 

The success of Sweden’s recycling program comes down to several important factors, most particularly the commitment of Swedes to reducing landfill, their waste collection practices and successful public education programs, and a commitment at the highest level of government to the circular economy. In 2018, a special advisory group, Delegationen för cirkulär ekonomi (Advisory Group for Circular Economy) was established to help make the circular economy a key part of Swedish government policy. 

Another crucial element in the success of recycling in Sweden, and other countries in the region, has been the establishment of waste-to-energy plants across the Scandinavian archipelago. Rather than sending trash to landfills, waste-to-energy plants generate energy that is then delivered in the form of electricity for homes and businesses.  

In an interview with the BBC in 2019, Peter Blinksbjerg, Chief Engineer at Amager Resource Centre (ARC) in Denmark, explained the basic principles of how waste-to-energy plants work.  

“Waste is put into furnaces, which burn it at around 1,000c. Water comes into the vaults, boils the water and produces steam. A turbine and generator produce electricity, which is then fed into the grid. The leftover energy from the steam is used to provide heating for homes.”  

The process of ‘cleaning’ the emissions from these plants often involves proprietary technology but, in the case of ARC, Adrienne Murray from the BBC related it this way: “Particles and pollutants from the smoke are removed, and a process called Selective Catalytic Reduction breaks down harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) into nitrogen and water vapour, with the resulting gas released through a large chimney on the roof.” 

CopenHill (Image Courtesy - Snow Magazine)

As Peter confirms, "Coming out of the stack is nitrogen, which is also in the air. There's a little leftover oxygen, some water vapour and then carbon dioxide.” 

CopenHill – Denmark 

While on the subject of Amager Resource Centre in Denmark, just like Australia and New Zealand, there is a healthy rivalry between the Scandinavian nations in almost everything – literature, art, music, economic performance and sports. The same could be said for the region's waste-to-energy plants too.  

In 2019, Copenhagen residents were treated to the opening of the €550 million ($A911 million) CopenHill (also known as Amager Bakke); a man-made, all-weather downhill ski and snowboarding slope, 490-metre hiking and running trail, and 270-foot-high climbing wall, located on top of the Amager Resource Centre. Replete with a rooftop bar and café, CopenHill boasts 360-degree views of Copenhagen, as well as a bird’s eye view of the famous Øresund Bridge and neighbouring Malmö in Sweden.   

As well as generating a reliable source of clean energy and playing a key role in reducing Denmark’s landfill and emissions, Amager Bakke was awarded World Building of the Year in 2021 at the World Architecture Festival.  

"A power plant doesn't have to be some kind of ugly box that blocks the views or casts shadows on its neighbours,” said Bjarke Ingels, the architect behind CopenHill. “It can actually be, maybe, the most popular park in a city.”   

The Blue Lagoon - Iceland

When Iceland’s Svartsengi Power Station was established in the 1970s, it was the world’s first geothermal (i.e. heat generated from within the earth) power station for local electricity and hot water production. Impressively, it has continued to lead the way in the renewable energy stakes for more than 45 years, and now sits at the centre of a resource park that boasts environmentally sustainable resource streams for its business inhabitants. 

But, where the power station is really attracting attention is in the establishment of its world-renowned spa experience, The Blue Lagoon.  

The Blue Lagoon (Image Courtesy - Blue Lagoon)

In the early 1980s, the locals of the region started bathing in the warm water emissions that had formed pools around the Svartsengi Power Station. This water was meant to disappear into the permeable lava field surrounding the plant, which it did for a while until the sedimentation grew so coarse the water was unable to filter through.    

Scientific studies then revealed something amazing: these waters were extremely rich in silica, algae and minerals that offered immense health benefits. And so, Blue Lagoon Limited emerged as a skincare company and then a tourist destination where visitors can bathe in the milky-blue runoff water that is sourced from approximately two kilometres underground. 

Close the Loop’s TonerPlas® – Australia 

Closer to home, Close the Loop is making serious inroads into diverting materials from landfill to the recycling chain. 

There’s a common misconception that all plastics can be recycled. More than 300,000 tons of soft plastics – like straws, clear plastic packaging, black food trays that get used for take-out food and microwave dinners, and toner cartridges – end up as landfill in Australia every year because they’re mistakenly included with ‘normal’ or non-polymer plastics like soft drink and water bottles. 

By developing a purpose-designed take back and recovery process for recycling soft plastics, Close the Loop created TonerPlas®; an award-winning bitumen additive made from recycled soft plastics that’s now being used to produce high-performance asphalt roads that last longer and require less maintenance than traditional asphalt.  

Not only is Close the Loop helping governments across Australia get more value from their infrastructure spending dollar, TonerPlas® is making an important environmental impact and contributing to the circular economy. 

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura – Paraguay 

The town of Cateura, on the outskirts of Asunción in Paraguay, was once a community among landfill – literally.  

Many of the residents were forced to eke out an impoverished living by selling plastic bottles, or anything else they could recycle from garbage. Poverty and lack of education was rife, with many of the town’s youth destined for a life of drug and alcohol abuse, and incarceration.  

In 2012, an environmental technician and music teacher, Favio Chavez, embarked on a mission to provide hope and self-esteem to the people of Cateura. What eventuated was the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura — an orchestra in which all of the instruments have been created from items found in the town’s landfill. Through the orchestra, Favio has helped change Paraguay’s perception of the town and provide its youth with a pathway to a better life.  

Saxophone made from recycled materials (Image Courtesy - Lifegate)

Along with Chavez’s initiative, much of the band’s success is due to the ingenuity of Nicolas Gomez; a former trash-picker-turned-luthier who was seminal in finding and then fabricating the materials to go from landfill waste to musical instruments.  

Old water pipes were recycled into brass instruments – like trumpets and saxophones – by combining discarded pipes, forks, knives, spoons and even coins. Cans and bake trays were converted into violins, and percussion instruments were fashioned from a combination of waste timbers and rubbish cans.  

“Garbage is not garbage,” said Gomez in a television news interview in 2016. “If you have creative ideas, you can do anything with garbage.”  

In the years since its formation, the band has undertaken world tours, played for European royalty, hosted TED Talks and been the subject of a feature documentary, Fillharmonic.  

“This is a social project that uses music as a catalyst,” said Favio Chavez in an interview. “We are working intensively with many families and many children. We propose a life-change projected into the future.” 

“The solution is not to run away from a place; the solution is to change the place. You have to have projects first, and then resources will come. It’s ideas that change the world.”  

In conclusion 

As well as embracing the principles of circularity – with a bit of ingenuity, commitment and purpose – there’s almost no end to the possibilities of what we can do with our waste and reduce how much trash we send to landfill in the process.  

Whether it’s as complex as a waste-to-energy plant, or as simple as ensuring we separate plastics the right way for effective recycling, we’re only scratching the surface of the many ways we can turn something ugly into something beautiful.  

Find out how Integra is contributing to recycling better at the source. Ask us about our Lune waste separation systems.