Waste management and recycling in Kungsbacka

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Recycling is our businessKungsbacka has an environmentally based rate for the municipal waste management. That me-ans that we want to make it more profitable for those who choose to sort and recycle their waste. Therefore it is cheaper to use a smaller waste bin at home and to sort out the food waste either for the production of biogas via the brown waste bin or to your compost at home.

Fixed and variable feeThe rate that you pay for your municipal

household waste management is divided into two fees; fixed and variable. The fixed fee covers expenses for recycling centres, customer service and administration. The variable fee covers the costs of emptying your waste bins and treating the waste. In Kungsbacka Municipality it is the Technical Services Committee and the Munici-

pal Assembly that make the political decisions related to the municipal waste management. It is then the Waste Management Unit under the Technical Services Administration who are re-sponsible for the implementation of the political decisions. We work according to the Municipal Waste Management Order to make the waste management as efficient and eco-friendly as possible. The collection of waste is managed by procured contractors and the contract period is usually five to seven years at a time.

kungsbacka.se/avfallIf you want to see the costs of different waste management subscriptions or want to know more about the municipal waste plan, waste regulations and rates, visit our website kungs-backa.se/avfall. l

In Kungsbacka we strive to create as little waste as possible, and to reuse and recycle as much waste as possible.

Collection and management of municipal waste is financed by a municipal waste management rate and not by local taxes.

•Start by deciding what you want to recycle, then follow the flow chart until you know how and where to sort your waste

(If you live in an apartment building some sorting possibilities may already be available in your recycling room)

Does it have to be thrown out?

START!REUSE

Sell, donate,

recondition

RECYCLINGSTATION

HAZARDOUS WASTE

Recycling Centre

BROWNWASTE

BIN

RECYCLING CENTRE

GREENWASTE

BIN

Is it packaging?

Is it hazardous waste?

Is it food waste?

Is it incinerable waste?

Does it fit in the waste bin?

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

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Five steps to less waste

Every person in Sweden throws away almost 500 kg of waste per year. Because consumption has increased by almost 25 percent during the last ten years it is not enough to just recycle. We must strive to move up in the waste hierarchy and get better at reusing – and especially at pre-venting the production of waste.

Waste hierarchyThe waste hierarchy is an EU directive that

is adopted into Swedish environmental legisla-tion. The directive controls how waste should be managed, firstly it should be prevented, second-ly reused, thirdly recycled for materials, fourthly recovered for energy and the last option is to dispose of the waste into a landfill. Kungsbacka Municipality is also a member of the waste plan A2020 for GR (the Gothenburg Regional Mu-nicipal Association). The goals included in the waste plan are lowering the amount of waste,

better use of resources with less environmental impact and preventing the spread of toxic sub-stances from waste. We also do joint campaigns in order to increase awareness of waste related questions, one of which is Reduce the Rub-bish – Count to 10. This is a part of the long term waste plan and the campaign is centred on smarter consumption. So the next time you are about to buy something, count to 10 and ask yourself “do I really need this, how fast is it go-ing to become waste?”.

Different activitiesKungsbacka Municipality regularly partakes

in different activities which aim to increase reu-sing, for example Swapping days and Clothes Swapping Days. We are also part of the Natio-nal Litter Picking Days each year. Keep an eye on our website kungsbacka.se for current acti-vities. l

In Kungsbacka we are good at recycling materials and recovering energy and nutrients from our waste. But as consumption increases so too does the amount of waste.

Recycling starts with you

When waste is produced it can basically be sor-ted and collected in three different places:• At the waste bins that are emptied by a

garbage truck• At a recycling station• At a recycling centreThe choice is yoursThere are three different choices of waste ma-nagement subscriptions. Firstly there is an op-tion where you get one green and one brown waste bin. The green bin is for incinerable waste and the brown is for food waste. The food waste is a great source for making bio fertilizer for far-mers and biogas to fuel cars, trucks and busses. A second option is to have a green waste bin for incinerable waste and to use the food waste in your own compost. The third and least eco-friendly and therefore most expensive op-tion is to just have a green waste bin at home in which you throw both incinerable waste and food waste. Please remember that you are obli-gated by law to sort metal, plastic and paper packaging, glass and paper at a recycling station. If you are living in an apartment building it is your landlord or homeowners association that chooses the waste manage-ment subscription.

RateKungsbacka Municipality has

approved an environmentally ba-sed household waste rate. What this means is that the more sustainable you are with your waste disposal, the less it will cost you. All the subscriptions and current rates can be found on our website kungsbacka.

The sorting and recycling of waste starts in your home. You are the source! Sorting afterwards in a facility is both more expensive and difficult, and not nearly as efficient.

se/avfall. Around 90 percent of Kungsbacka’s inhabitants are currently sorting out their food waste and most of them have the brown waste bin. In the green bin you only put the waste that is left after sorting out food and hazar-dous waste, packages and other waste that can be recycled or reused. On page 2 you can see a flow chart that guides you on how to sort your waste. If you are good at sorting you will notice that there are very few things that end up in the green waste bin, since most waste can be reu-sed, recycled or have its energy recovered. Less waste means that you can order a smaller waste bin, which is cheaper! On the next page you will find examples of what should go in the green and brown waste bins.

Land fill

Energy recovery

Material recycling

Reuse

Waste prevention

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Food waste is basically all that is left after you have prepared and eaten a meal. This waste is sorted in a special brown paper bag, in this bag you can also put waste such as paper towels, cut flowers, coffee grounds and tea bags, (without the label).

The eco-friendly paper bagKungsbacka Municipality has chosen the

brown paper bag as a collection method for our food waste. There are different kinds of plastic bags made for food waste, but they almost al-ways contain some kind of fossil-sourced raw material and can be a problem in the biogas production process. The paper bag can easily be broken down in the process and does not pro-duce any micro plastic particles in the bio ferti-lizer that winds up in our fields. The paper bag is also ventilating and reduces the moisture in the waste, meaning lighter transports. Make sure that your food waste gets some time to drain excess moist before putting it in the paper bag. This way you reduce the risk of bad odour and

I gröna kärlet

•Diapers, pads, cotton swabs/buds

•Tampons, condoms

•Waxed or laminated paper

•Litter from animal cages

•Popsicle sticks and tooth-picks

•Toothbrushes

•Dishcloths

•Dust bags

•Cigarette butts and snus

•Chewing gum

•Candle ends

•CDs and DVDs

flies in the summer. A tip for food waste that can be potentially bad smelling (such as shell-fish and shrimp shells), is to put the waste in a plastic bag in the freezer. When it is time for the garbage truck to empty the waste bins you empty the frozen waste into the paper bag.

With the household waste subscription “Matavfall och brännbart avfall blandat”, (Food waste and incinerable waste mixed), you place the food waste into the green waste bin. This is the most expensive and least sustainable and eco-friendly option, so do both your wallet and the environment a favour by not choosing this alternative There are also additional services that you can choose; you can have your garden waste, recyclable glass and paper collected from your property. The collection of garden waste is of-fered from calendar week 14 to week 45 and you can choose from two different bin sizes. Please note that you can only put garden waste such as cut grass, leaves and small sticks in this bin. Soil, gravel and other materials are not permitted. l

In Sweden 1.8 kg per person of hazardous and electronic waste gets incorrectly sorted each year. It is highly important that hazar-dous waste is disposed of at the hazardous waste depo. Every gram counts!

Never in the waste binThe most common types of hazardous was-te include paint, glue, lightbulbs, cleaning agents, and small batteries. Other types are chemicals, anti-freeze, solvents, chlorine, mer-cury thermometers, spray cans, gas cylinders, oil filters, waste oil, acids and old fire exting-uishers. If you are having problems classifying

All forms of fluorescent lights or lightbulbs – both the old kind and the new low energy kind – are sorted as hazardous waste.

In the green waste bin

Hazardous waste – every gram counts!the waste, leave it at the hazardous waste re-ception at the recycling centre just to be sure. It should never be thrown in the waste bin as it can wrongly end up in nature. The total amount of incorrectly sorted hazardous waste has a potential to do great harm if it ends up in the wrong place.

Red box or hazardous waste recep-tion in Recycling Centres

Place your hazardous waste in the special red boxes in your recycling room or at the hazar-dous waste depo in a Recycling Centre and we will process it correctly.l

In the brown waste bin

•Food waste

•Meat and fish bones

•Peals from eggs, oranges, etc

•Tea and teabags, (with-out the label and staple)

•Coffee grounds and filters

•Cut flowers (not soil and pot plants)

•Popcorn, candy and cho-colate (not chewing gum)

•Fallen fruit (only small amounts since the bins can get very heavy. You can leave fallen fruit at the recycling centre every autumn for free)

na.

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All in a day’s work

The bins must be in place at 06:00 at the latest on the day of collection in order to be emptied. The collection route can end as late as 20:00.

To ease the workload for the drivers the bin handles should be placed facing out towards the road. In one day we empty thousands of bins, so every bit of help counts.

Leave the waste bin in place until it has been emptied. In case of harsh weather, slippery roads or other reasons that make it hard for the garbage truck to reach your address, the bin should remain in place even until the day after.

Two metres of towpath is included in your waste management subscription. If the waste bins must be pulled further than that you must submit an applica-tion for extra towpath, which comes with an extra cost to your subscription.

We empty more than 2,000 waste bins each day. We do this in every weather condition, from the city centre to the rural municipal boundaries. This is what you as a municipal waste management subscriber can do to ensure an effec-tive and safe waste management.

The road to the designated collection spot is the truck drivers’ place of work. It has to be wide enough in order for the garbage truck to reach it. We strive to make our waste management as safe as possible, both for you and for our staff who empty the bins. Unfortuna-tely deadly incidents have occurred, both in Kungsbacka and in other Swedish cities. Therefore we want to minimize the distances that the garbage trucks need to reverse and to have plenty amount of space in order to make a safe turn.

New designated spot for collectionFor some of our customers this means that they will have to change their spot for collec-tion. We will contact you and have an open dialogue to ensure that we come to the best solution possible for all parts.

Help us to get saferRead more about our work at our website kungsbacka.se/sakersophamtning. If you have ideas on how your waste management could get safer and better feel free to con-tact us!l

Safe waste management

Sometimes our drivers give information to you directly, for example a misplaced waste bin, by putting a hanger on the handle.

All waste bins have an ID-tag that gets scanned when it is lifted. This way we can see exactly when your bin was emptied.

The surface between the designated collection spot and the garbage truck must be flat and compacted.

The designated collection spot should be kept free from obstacles and vege-tation. During winter snow shall be cleared and the surface sanded.

The waste bins are supposed to be kept in a state that make them easy to emp-ty, with no waste that is stuck or frozen to the bin walls.

Your waste that you put in the bins should be well packaged and the bin should not be overfilled. The lid must be able to close without having to for-ce it shut. If you do often finding your-self with an overfilled bin you are wel-come to contact us for tips and advice about sorting, or to order a larger bin.

Waste collecting schedule Each year the procured entrepreneur sends a schedule of which days your waste bins are emptied and what kind of subscriptions you have. You can also download your waste collec-tion schedule at kungsbacka.se/avfall. You need your customer number to log in, you can find this on your invoice.

Spot-checksThe waste in the bins can sometimes be sub-jected to random spot-checks. We do this to make sure that the waste is correctly sorted. If you mismanage your sorting your subscription can be changed. This also applies if the bin is repeatedly overfilled.

Customer serviceDo you want to report a bin that hasn’t been emptied or have any other questions that are related to the physical management of the bins, call the procured entrepreneur Ragn-Sells at 010-723 40 00. If your question is related to your subscription or your invoice, call the Mu-nicipal Customer Centre Kungsbacka Direkt at 0300-83 40 00. l

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Examples: newspapers and magazines, cata-logues, flyers, writing/drawing paper, paper-backs. Staples, wire binding from a spiral pads and such does not have to be removed, they can be separated later on in the recycling pro-cess via magnets.

Envelopes and sticky notes should not be pla-ced in this container as the glue hinders the recycling process. Sort envelopes and sticky notes as incinerable household waste.

Papers and magazines

Recyclable packaging, papers and glassMuch of the waste produced by households is different kinds of packaging. These should not be placed in the green waste bin. According to Waste Regulation 2011:927 we are obligated to sort out packaging and leave it at a recycle station.

FTI has about 30 recycling stations in Kungsbacka. At FTI’s website you can see a current list of where they are lo-cated. If the containers happen to be full when you go to leave your waste, you cannot leave your waste on the ground next to the containers. That is considered littering and is punishable by law.

Examples: pasta or cereal boxes, milk or juice packaging, paper sugar bags, sacks for dog food, paper carrying bags, corrugated paper (large boxes of corrugated paper can be sor-ted at a recycling centre).

You can also put milk, yoghurt, and juice car-tons with screwcaps in this container. Unscrew the cap and put it in the container for plastic packaging. The plastic that is left in the paper packaging does not have to be removed, as it gets separated later in the recycling process.

Paper packagingExamples: Plastic carrying bags, plastic bags, plastic tubes, toothpaste tubes, plastic foil, in-ner bags from cereal packages, plastic bottles, plastic pots, lids and caps made of plastic, crisp bags, polystyrene. If you have a plastic bag with an aluminium layer inside, crumple it into a ball; if it keep its shape sort it as metal packaging. If it folds back sort it as plastic packaging.

Polystyrene trays for fish and meat go in this container also. Deposit bottles can be returned at a return station at a grocery store, but not at the recycling station.

Plastic packaging

Förpacknings- och tidningsinsamlingen, (FTI), is a country wide organisation that handles the collection of packaging and papers. They don’t work on a municipal assignment and have the full responsibility for the recycling sta-tions. Therefore comments or feedback regar-ding the recycling stations should be directed to FTI and not Kungsbacka Municipality. The packaging should be empty of food waste but they don’t have to be neatly cleaned out. Fold or flatten the packaging and feel free to put one

paper packaging into another one, though any packaging consisting of plastic or metal must lie loose as they are going to be post-sorted.

Report to FTIIf the containers are full or the station is in need of cleaning, you can report this to FTI at 0200-880311 or at their website www.ftiab.se. There you can also see when a station is going to be emptied or when the next scheduled cleaning is.l

Example: Glass bottles and cans. Clear and co-loured glass should be separated and placed in different containers at the recycle station. Lids and caps made out of metal cannot be left on the glass packaging.

Deposit bottles can be returned at a return station at a grocery store, but not at the recy-cling station.

Glass packagingExamples: Metal packaging and caps, metal lids, metal foils, and metal tubes. Plastic caps can be left on the metal tube to prevent bad smell.

The metal packaging from tea lights should not be placed in this container, take it to a re-cycling centre or a special collection container at the town hall.

Metal packaging

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Where do I put pressure impregnated wood?You can leave this at the recycling centres in Åsa and Barnamossen. Due to space shortage it is not possible at this time to leave it at Klov-sten recycling centre. Leave in the container marked “pressure treated wood” – “tryckim-pregnerat trä” and NOT in “wood” – “trä”, not even small amounts. Pressure treated wood releases toxic gases when incinerated and must be specially treated. Where do I leave fireworks, ammuni-tion, flares and other explosives?Because of safety reasons we do not accept anything explosive at out recycling centres. Fireworks can be returned to where you bought them. Concerning explosive goods such as dynamite, flares and ammunition are you advised to contact the police. Where do I leave old car tyres?We do not accept old tyres. Tyres are classi-fied as producer’s responsibility and should be accepted at a tyre centre or tyre company.Where do I leave my old fridge, free-zer or stove?So called white goods are accepted in single amounts from private persons at all of our recycling centres. If you are leaving no other waste than for an example a stove, you can leave it without registering your recycling centre card. If this is the case please contact the staff before entering.Old asbestos cement sheets? Asbestos must be well-packaged in plastic. Smaller amounts, (max size 50x50 cm and max weight 10 kg), is accepted at the hazardous waste depo at Åsa and Klovsten

recycling centres. Larger amounts, also well packaged in plastic, are only accepted at Barnamossen recycling centre. Gasoline, oil and other hazardous fluids?These are accepted at the hazardous waste depo at all of our recycling centres. As an in-dividual you are allowed to leave one closely sealed and distinctly marked container with a max volume of 10 litres. If you have larger amounts, please contact the Waste Manage-ment Unit before heading off to the recycling centres. Even if the containers are empty you should leave them at the hazardous waste depot.l

FAQ about how to sort it

Empty your bags!When you leave waste at a recycling centre you have to empty the waste bags. This is for us to ensure that the waste is correctly sorted.

A2020 GR’s Regional Waste Plan

Waste prevention Actions and plans to create as little waste as possible

Waste hierarchy EU directive that dictates how waste should be managed

Biogas Fuel made from fermented food waste

Bio fertilizer Rest product from production of biogas that can be used for agricultural purposes

Burnable residual waste Waste that cannot be reused

Land fill Also known as dump, where waste is buried in the ground

Towpath The distance garbage truck drivers pull the waste bins

Energy recovery The process of recovering energy from incinerating waste

Hazardous waste Waste that is toxic, harmful or hazardous

Fraction A classification of waste, e.g wood or metal

Designated collection spot The spot where the waste bins are to be placed for collection

Ecocycle park Place for increased reuse

Food waste Leftover food that can be used in biogas production

Waste bin Small container that you place your household waste in

Garbage truck Larger vehicle that collects waste from houses and apartment buildings

Garden compost Where you put plant parts, small twigs and leaves from your garden

Upcycle To repair and upgrade something to a higher value

Food compost An insulated container where you put food waste and compost it to soil

White goods Stove, freezer, fridge, etc.

Reuse To use something again, not disposing of it

Recycling centre Manned facility where you leave bulky and hazardous waste

Recycling station Unmanned station where you leave packaging, glass and paper

Recycling A – Z

Recycling station – managed by FTI.Recycling centre – managed by Kungsbacka Municipality.

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kungsbacka.se/avfallftiab.se

avfallsverige.semiljönär.se

raknatill10.sesopor.nu

minimeringsmastarna.se

Links to learn more about waste

Download the sorting app!Download “Kungsbacka Avfallsapp”. This app is coming summer 2018 and is available for iOS and Android. With the app you can get sorting ad-vice, see your closest recycling station and get push notifications with news and your next collection day.

Layout and photo: Adam Folcker, Teknik l Illustrations: Fredrik Simson, Sandra Kipper, Marcus Ivarsson l February 2018

Here you´ll find answers to your questions about waste mangement and recycling in Kungsbacka Municipality.

Is chewing gum food waste?

Can I leave the cap on the

caviar tube?

What does waste hierarchy mean?

Where do I find the schedule for

my waste bin collection?

What is classified as hazardous waste?

Does it matter which way I turn my waste

bin on emptying day?

Förvaltningen för TeknikKungsbacka kommun • 434 81 Kungsbacka • 0300-83 40 00 info@kungsbacka.se • www.kungsbacka.se