Our perception of waste is constantly being changed, as is the development of garbage bins. In Denmark, we have gone from using metal stands with paper bags to garbage bins made of plastic.
The increased focus on sustainability and circular economy has meant that municipalities have continuously changed both the design of garbage bins and sorting amenities for household-sorted waste, resulting in tons of garbage bins being discarded due to new sorting systems.
The new sorting systems help to facilitate increased recycling rates of different types of waste and thereby turning the waste into a resource.
The discarded garbage bins are a resource in themselves, and with their proper recycling, the environment is spared from significant amounts of CO2 emissions.
For every kg of recycled plastic from Aage Vestergaard Larsen, the environment is spared 2.4 kg of CO2 emissions, based on a calculation of our consumption of water, electricity, etc.
Our garbage bin adventure started with Vejle Municipality when it sent 80,000 discarded garbage bins for recycling at our facility in Mariager in 2016.
In addition to municipalities, we also currently receive discarded garbage bins from a large number of providers of waste solutions.
From 2018 to mid-2020, we have recycled and created a high-quality product for the plastics processing industry from the 2.312.126 kg of bins we have processed. The environment is spared 7.347.157 kg of CO2 emissions.
