It’s funny the things which you notice sometimes. Just the other day I moved into an apartment, one that was built quite a few years back. The linoleum floors, the big windows and the kitchen were the things I noticed, but what I noticed most of all was that under the kitchen sink there was no recycling storage. Noticing that, I thought “wow this apartment is old”. Nowadays all the apartments that are built are influenced by what this age’s Sweden stands for. We have agreed that recycling is something good, and so decisions have gradually been made to make it easier for people who rent housing to be able to recycle in the garbage room, as well as leave compost bags. The paper bags are left in huge piles in the common garbage room for people to take when they need them. Though it is still the private individual’s responsibility to make sure that dangerous waste gets left at a special recycling station.

Sweden is good about reusing and recycling in a lot of ways I think. The special recycling stations are in Swedish called “Återvinningscentral”. Usually people load big trailers filled with junk and they drive up to the containers to sort the stuff into the right containers. Different categories are burnable, cardboard, electronics, styrofoam and wood amongst other things. There are special spots for paint, light bulbs and other dangerous or poisonous matter, as well as garden waste like cut grass and branches.

 Not so long ago recycling wasn’t anything people were so interested in, and not at all something natural like nowadays.