A large part of Linköping's electric and district heating is produced in Gärstadverket, which is fired with waste.
When the waste is incinerated, so much carbon dioxide is formed that the plant comes in 12th place in Sweden, with its emissions of 265,000 tonnes of CO2 eq.
per year.
- Even if we do not just burn rubbish but send our waste to someone else, it does not help the climate.
Changing fuel does not solve anything, the amount of waste is still there, says Mile Elez, technical director and sustainability manager at Tekniska Verken.
The plant's emissions have increased every year
In the early 1990s, the municipality's electricity and district heating production was completely dependent on coal and oil, but since then they have switched.
In 2020, 98 percent of the recycled and renewable fuel was used instead.
The dilemma with plastic
Now the problem is instead that the recycled fuel, ie the waste, the garbage, contains large amounts of plastic made from fossil oil.
Listen to sustainability manager Mile Elez in the video above about what we should do about plastic.
- The facility at Gärstad is adapted for waste and will continue to be burned with waste, as it is a resource that would otherwise be lost, says Mile Elez.