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- Опубликовано: 10 дек 2021
- In this 150th episode of Reykjavík Grapevine’s Newscast, editor-in-chief Valur Grettisson brings you a special breaking news story regarding Iceland’s plastics recycling - or as it turns out, lack thereof. [TRANSLATED TEXT IN SUBTITLES, PLEASE TURN ON CC!]
Bjartmar Alexandersson, who you may know from our show ‘The Icelandic Perspective’, is an investigative reporter with media outlet Stundin. He has a particular interest in researching and investigating crimes around waste management - something that has been growing globally in recent years. Recently, Bjartmar received a tip and travelled to Southern Sweden to discover a mountain of Icelandic plastic that was never recycled - although consumers, as well as the companies in Iceland, had paid for it to be so.
The amount of plastic is truly shocking, and it’s likely that it represents around 60% of all Icelandic plastic recycling exported to Sweden in 2016. But It’s still there, and Bjartmar now has the footage to show it. Valur met with Bjartmar on Friday 10th of December, the day the story broke, to speak to him about the case and find out his thoughts on what the impact of this story may be.
You can read Bjartmar’s reporting on this case on Stundin. The article is in Icelandic but can be translated into English: stundin.is/grein/14445/islens...
Additional video by Davíð Þór Guðlaugsson
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Now this is journalism. Keep fighting the fight. I never would have thought something like this is happening. Single use plastics need to be banned.
As a North American, I was both surprised and thrilled to see there is still good journalism happening somewhere. Great work. Keep it up.
Great example of hard hitting investigative journalism.
Top notch reporting! TY Valur, Bjartmar and Reykjavík Grapevine!
Good investigative journalism to hold politicians and company CEOs to account. Well done!
They are very slippery criminals. Many of them are psychopaths.
Brilliant reporting! Thank you for sharing this story with everyone.
My heart breaks for the Palestinian family who (along with all the people of earth) are being screwed over by the Swedish government. It's pass the buck time as we say in the States.
Sweden, I'm so disappointed in you!
Did you watch this episode and that is what you take of it?
The icelandic government was just happy to get rid of it, did not demand the money back - which Swedish and Norwegian gowernment did. And S & N stopped the collab. Iceland did not. A corrupt bad company is a shared responsibility by all who had business with them?
Feel bad for the family who bought the warehouse, but a written promise should be able to be claimed in a trial.
@@pyrozyden2841 I did watch and shared it. The poor family is totally the biggest losers in this. For the Swedish government to make THEM pay is outrageous!!!
Jim and I are sooo shocked! We will forward this to our local 🇨🇦 recycling and our MP to be aware. The poor Palestinian family being so taken for a ride. How AWFUL and sad! Bjartmar and Valur THANK YOU! Excellent!
Several years ago, I enquired into the 'destination' of locally-collected plastic here in Scotland, to be told it's all burned to produce energy. It didn't matter what sort of 'recycling symbol' was printed on the label, it all went in. So my effort to sort labels and wash cartons and bottles had been a complete waste of time.
Obviously, I have no idea just how 'clean' the burning process is, and it's likely the council officer I spoke didn't know either. We just have to take their word for it most of the time.
In the past, I wrote to a couple of supermarkets asking why they were always saying they were 'looking into' expanding their range of recyclable packaging - and never did. Nothing changed through any amount of criticism.
However, I later wrote to one or two companies who packaged only some of their products in card - telling them that I would continue to buy 'that' product since they'd made the effort to reduce plastic (and I still do). In response, they quickly changed plastic packaging for card on a range of other products.
Sometimes a pat on the back and a bit of positive reinforcement is a better way to encourage these grocery companies to change to a more easily managed packaging material.
Almost six years that I live in Iceland, and that's the second time I hear about Stundin. I realized with this documentary how valuable it is to support your work, I'll subscribe to your newspaper right now. Kudos for this excellent investigation.
Excellent reporting! We in the US have had some investigations into this and are in similar circumstances. You’re so very right that no one seems to care about taking the responsibility to actually hold companies accountable. I have also be advocating for manufacturers to develop more environmentally safe packaging as this is where the problem actually starts.
Well done and keep at it!
That was incredible reporting.
My gosh, this is absolutely shocking! Good work, guys! 👏👏
Journalism at its informative best.
Recycling whether it be plastic, clothing, etc is a a worldwide problem and how it can be resolved is by we, the people, writing to our respective local authorities and national government representatives to enquire as to where our recycling ends up. We also need a global effort to put pressure on industry, retail and hospitality etc to stop using plastic, plastic, plastic!
Having said this, we, the people, have to consume less in all things that we purchase in this throw away world. I truly hope in this particular report, the issues raised are resolved. With greetings to all from Scotland and keep recycling.
My tablet has a non-recyclable plastic cover, guilty as charged 🤤☹
This is a particularly fabulous piece of reporting. Well done, RG! Polly would approve. Excellent and illuminating discussion between you two and great video as well. If this is happening in Sweden, just imagine how terrible things are liable to be in the Southeast Asian and less developed countries.
May your efforts to see this story told bear fruit in the form of proper responsibility-taking and new, effective laws. I will be sharing this video...
Great reporting. It's sad thatr money wins over our health of the people and our earth and I'm afraid theres more of this all over the world going on. Way too many governments including mine in the US are not doing enough to clean up and stop all this pollution of our environments. Big corps seem to win almost every time. Don't give up though! We have to keep fighting!
Same here in Puerto Rico of course.
I will be sharing this report. Respect to this environmental journalist for his dedication.
Thanks Claudia, we appreciate the support!
@@TheReykjavikGrapevine You are welcome. I enjoy RG very much(love Polly). Valur is so cute.
This got me thinking: what happens to my recycling on a local level? I need to ask questions. Keep up the good fight, Bjartmar.
Same exact thought came to my mind.
Recycling has become a scam on every continent. To stop plastic pollution, we need to stop manufacturing and using plastics.
@@macuser48 "we need to stop manufacturing and using plastics."
Since the odds of that happening is zero, perhaps stuffing waste plastic in warehouses is a pretty good idea. After all, we stuff waste nuclear fuel in caves in dry climates.
Ace reporting! We clean up our local water ways and public bike/hike trails finding tonnes of plastics/trash/tyres. Local people/business then donate to help us recycle/remove the dumpsters we fill. It’s a never ending process. I dream of the day single use plastics aren’t allowed usage by manufacturers anymore.
Great work by Bjartmar…so we’ll investigated and reported. Really interesting too.
Woah! Brilliant journalism.
Great reporting! The plastic situation is shocking in itself! We need to find another way to do without it or at least so much of it! We did it before and we can do it again!
Yes, indeed we did do without it. Remember when our sandwiches were wrapped in either a grease proof or waxed paper to keep them fresh all the way to lunch? I grew up in a fast food place and we wrapped hamburgers in a piece of grease proof and then popped it in a paper bag. Pies just got the paper bag. And all the cordials and milk drinks were in glass that was reused multiple times. So really the only ones to lose out if that comes back would be the manufacturers of the plastic products …time to insist on those manufacturers diversifying for the sake of the whole planet…and as an incentive maybe they should have to go clean out the storage warehouses.
@@nolasmith7687 yes! When I was a kid you’d go to the grocers and your stuff would be put in a brown paper bag and not plastic. We had plastic lunchboxes and flasks but these would last years! I was born in 1976 and there wasn’t such a problem back then, it seems to have increased dramatically since I got into my 20s and beyond.
What a great interview!
It'd be great to see this kind of Investigative journalism being done about what is happening with all of the toxic waste coming from the disposal of solar panels and wind turbines!
Great job! I've had to dumpster dive in basic training in US military. Yours is exponentially larger than mine.
I'll continue to recycle but will look for more glass.
Fascinating. Well done Bjartmar.
First comment lol, never happened before. 😜🖖🏼🍇! At market so I have to watch later! Thanks for the upload!
Excellent reporting. In Australia we have recycling problems too. 5 Councils here in Melbourne got into a contract dispute with the company that was processing their recycling. The councils have been storing it in warehouses and it was more than a year before the public found out. It's disheartening when we do our best to recycle but the chain breaks down over something like finances.
Incredible! Keep up the pressure!
Excellent and informative reporting. Thank you for sharing this and thanks to Bjartmar for his dedicated work in investigative reporting.
Brilliant journalism, very informative.
Thanks for the updates.
Very nice. I remember in Calgary Canada when they announce (caught) that they were storing recycle glass in storage underground at the local dump.
Holy f**k! I am so happy this came out, I always wondered what happens with the plastic sent to Sweden and I am shocked to find out. I worked in sustainability in Iceland in 2016 and we even talked with the waste management companies from Iceland about the plastic sent to Sweden. I am overwhelmed with this investigation.
This is (sadly) most probably only the tip of the iceberg. Great reporting. Thank you.
Better in warehouses than in the oceans. I tell myself that research entities are busy developing ways to use used plastics and i understand it's very complicated due to the myriad formulae. Various methods I learned about all need to have the material reduced to tiny bits first. I believe there are efforts to develop reuses for plastic's many varieties. Please share anything to that effect that you uncover. It MUST be happening. I HOPE it is.
The fraud comes in because Iceland PAID good money for the plastics to be recycled. They paid for a service and were lied to. But, yes, also better in a warehouse than the ocean, yes!
Great update! Love the park!
😄love your humor . Thank you. Hello to Polly ! Nice decoration nice presentation. 👍🌲
Brilliant interview Valur. Thanks for sharing this with the English speaking world. We all struggle with the same issues in Australia too.
Bjartmar thank you for sharing this story. I hope this makes a difference in how those that are in power are held accountable. We need more stringent laws to stop this corruption and polluting of our planet. When Earth is full of shit then where do we live?
Thanks for bringing this to the world's (Iceland's) attention. Plastic recycling has been a scam almost from the first and sponsored by the plastics industry.
In Australia 🇦🇺 we have the same issues with recycling waste also being stored in warehouses. The citizens recycle waste in good faith only for this to happen.
This is responsible true investigating journalism, right tone with humor too! Real reporting to public so lacking in 95% of media here in USA!!
Can't imagine dumpster diving into the stench to the max as you did, and how many showers & cleaning your clothing needed! Great record of this recycling disaster, lying companies & criminality indeed more than a probability! It is shocking indeed, no wonder Polly decided to skip this trip, lol!!
Keep us updated on this as bet more if this happens worid wide! Recycle responsibility!
Cheers & "Hi" to Polly too!!
Great reporting!
Thank you Kari, appreciated
In the U.S., a lot of our plastics wind up being dumped off the barges carrying them into the Pacific Ocean. There is now a huge island of plastic trash floating off the West Coast of the U.S.!
great video!
Good work Bjartmar.
Appreciate the English closed captioning
Another sensational reporting
At 15:42 we can see Art's reflection. Nice to see you Art 👋🏻
starts in the lobby of the hotel i stayed in in june
Is it the Grand Reykjavík? We were thinking that when watching…
This is tragic! Shows that no country is immune from being involved in one way or another from these environmental hazards which really is a disaster. What is wrong with the Swedish Legal System where they are making an innocent Palestinian family responsible for the illegalities of those who are the real crooks who gathered all this plastic together under false pretenses. This family should take legal action against those who sold them this building and the Swedish should be helping them instead of threatening them!
Excellent English language, cute and useful :)
Question - in 2016, were Icelandic Citizens told they could put in their recycling bin, not just plastic milk containers, but also plastic bags?? In all of my many decades “recycling” here in the States we never were allowed to toss in plastic wrappers, in fact, only certain plastic bottles were ever allowed (glass jars, steel and aluminum cans were always ok). It should have been a huge red flag for Icelanders if some company told them they could “recycle” plastic wrappers. That outfit that stuffed this odd mix of both good and useless plastic into that Swedish warehouse was a good guy compared to others who toss it into the sea. The information presented today seems incomplete, but also very interesting. Please keep digging (pun intended)!
Corruption isn’t exclusive for certain countries or certain regions of the world.
It is EVERYWHERE!!
We, as a planet, as the human race, must fight against it together!!!
I always thought it was suspect how all plastic material in Iceland is allowed to be disposed together. To the best of my knowledge the mix of plastics would be a nightmare to process. Sweden are big into trash incineration, perhaps they thought they could burn these plastics, a result perhaps much worse than landfill!
What happenend to plastic from other years? How much was swept under the rug, how much money was embezzled?
5:38 Swerec investigated, sued by 3 nations, plastic was part of giant fire in Latvia.
Spider webs, and spiders, are my kryptonite too! I would not have been going anywhere near that warehouse!
Unreal...and truly disgusting.
Very enlightening report! Shocked? Yes. Surprised? Not at all. Plastic will remain controversial until a time when we stop producing it and really start to address all the wrongs..
No one audited the recycling process end-to-end before the contract was signed? Or on an ongoing basis? Trust but verify! No auditing during contract life, really?
PS1 - Hope Icelandic government takes action by firing the Minister who appointed the previous head of the Board (or demote them to Minister of Outdoor Cats).
PS2 - Icelandic Recycle Fund board are blockheads and/or worse for being unwilling to take responsibility. Maybe they should be assigned to picking up plastic waste.
Is this the outcome of consumer expectations of unsorted dirty plastic, plastic bags are not the same as HDPE . It is not surprising that this happened as the promises of recycling and the reality are often not met. 19 % recycled is a good start, but if it is dirty or degraded it will be refused at a recycler.
Plastic recycling is a very manual task, the empty containers from china could be filled with garbage and shipped to China. The wonderful machines that can sort plastic often fail with bags as they gum up the works.
What to do about it ? stop using plastics, start using paper, start using glass, start using more metal. Sort the waste plastics at the consumer side and clean those that can be recycled. The plastics that can't be recycled can go to pyrolysis, but that also has enviromental problems.
Great comment. There is a reason why recycling is the last of the three R's
Sadly I won't hold my breath for people to reduce their consumption any time soon
@@doughboy15237 Its carrots and sticks. The plastic industry wants to sell more plastic, the consumer wants convenience. Industry wants to convince us that the problem is the consumer not the producers or the packagers. Consumers are taught to feel good about recycling, when the reality is that we are all part of the problem.
What a shocking story. It is so clear that investigative journalism is very important. I feel sorry for the Palestinian family. I hope there will be a solution for them.
Unbelievable.
Apparently this is happening in Canada too. Not organized crime, but provincial governments are not actually recycling the plastic but just creating huge trash piles with it. I’m a dedicated recycler, and it sounds like all we environmentally minded folks are wasting our time.
Just an small pebble in the solar system of our plastic mess.
wow. So upsetting, sameful. Is there anything can be done about it?
My fear is that you only find the cases where amateurs makes money storing trash. The professional probably dump it out at sea.
Wondering if Iceland, Sweden not part of Basel Convention. Looked for Wikipedia article that would be appropriate for this recycling scandal but didn't find one. P.S. BAN Basel Action Network is international recycling watchdog nonprofit.
As an American, I miss actual journalism. Our country needs a Spider Jerusalem at this point, because our media is complicity, not journalism, in action.
Yup. The guy at the end of the line inherits the the S___ (wrong) end of the stick.
Wow
I wish we had journalists like this in the USA. Unfortunately, all we get here is 'Happy Talk' from corporate mouthpieces.
Please could you spell out your name for us(me) as I can’t understand it when you say it at the beginning. Thank you.
How disappointing about Sweden. About all of us. Great video.
Hi Barbara, you can find Valur and Bjartmar's names and all other details in the video description as always!
@@TheReykjavikGrapevine
T’rrific! Prompt reply. Thank you.
That is very different have tweeted this.
Do all of the nordic countries look like the inside of an Ikea? xD
Oil barons have to make their oil soaked trillions.
It's not unusual. Plastic is not all recycled immediately, which is why they typically don't want plastics containing food waste. It is typically stored, and if it has food waste in it, it will attract pest such as bugs and rats.
corruption runs deep.
I want to hear this guy tell stories
They haven't had chance to dump it in the sea yet, that's what they do, they put it on a ship and take it out into the ocean and dump it....it's always been the case! We're so dumb! ;D
Bjartmar, Polly may have slightly more hair than you but she wouldn't look nearly as smart in a suit. Bjartmar is 👍🏻
This is happening everywhere in the world! Here in Australia our ABC. programme 'War on Waste' actually put GPS. locator devices into plastic, rubber, paper and electronics bundles destined for recycling centers in S/E Asia but also within Australia, what they found was that only a small % was actually recycled, 95% is stored in warehouses or even supposed 'open recycling depots' . . . These are just excuses for recycling companies because what they are actually waiting and storing this waste for is 'an accident to happen' like a fire or explosive event that will burn or destroy the materials enabling them then to also claim insurance monies at the same time!
In the end this is totally to do with Govt. corruptions, yes they will say "no we outsourced this to others and it is they who are corrupt", forgetting that it is they that set the rules and they that allow these companies to ignore them with impunity!
Remember also that ALL plastics regardless of what you have been foolish to believe is carcinogenic, whether degraded or not, hard or soft it is causing multiple types of cancers including ovarian cancers in very young women because stabilizing chemicals in ALL plastics mimic estrogen causing young girls to ovulate much earlier than is normal!
If you store anything with a moisture content in any plastic container, the plastic will be leaching carcinogens into it, be it foods, medicines or water storage tanks.
The only way out of this absolute fossil fuel B/S catastrophe, and it's related corruption is to stop using ALL fossil fuels immediately.
If it needs burned why not dump it in the volcano. What would it hurt?
What a disgrace!
We need to tax single use plastic out of existence and tax unnecessary plastic in packaging as well.
all of the responsibility remains on the shoulders of the public. we do our part faithfully and we find out that once again capitalism (corruption) has destroyed the system we thought would take care of our garbage. never will our garbage be taken care of until it is no longer sold, wrapped in triple layers around everything we consume.
Make plastic bale structures/homes.
Your right ! We need and Environment fraud Law
wowww.. i am not impressed.. but thanks for telling us... blessings.. helena
Hardly the first example of this. This is the reality of political corruption and activism.
Don’t worry Iceland, your just joining the rest of us but being honest an responsible about it!
But , you do have big incinerators, volcanoes!
Re cycling to the earth?
That would be a cool science experiment wouldn’t it!
Plus, burning the plastic probably produced carcinogens that polluted the air that people breathe. Awful! I feel sorry for the Palestinian family as well.
NEI NEI NEI NEI
Interesting,have St:Greta Thuberg something to say about it.??????😱😱😱
Plastic industry is a joke eh? Or a lie rather.
It isn't a unique case this is what normally happens, the new world order want us all dead guys!!! ;D
This sounds like a job for Greta Thunberg, while she is running around the world shouting about climate change, she should remember climate is not the only environmental problem and that this particular issue is at home.
Something will happens with this journalist...