Every other swedish person in Stockholm throws trash down the toilet,
say representatives at Stockholm Vatten,
who receive 32 ton of trash a week into the waste treatment plants in Bromma and Henriksdal!
Stockholm Vatten works hard to keep drinking water drinkable and waste water 'not too harmful' for the ocean. After perusing their website I found what they had to say about the purification process of household water waste very interesting! Here is a short excerpt:
Work to reduce rubbish and environmental toxins
Every week 32 tons of trash, which has been flushed down the toilet, ends up in the sewage treatment works in Stockholm. To reduce the amount of trash, as well as the environmental toxins that may disturb both the processes in the treatment works as well as the aquatic environment, measures are continuously taken to improve the treatment process and prevent the toxins and trash from ending up in the wastewater. One of the measures has been public campaigns with the aim, for example, to convince the population to use eco-labelled products and to use a waste-paper basket instead of flushing trash down the toilets.This is really very important because, after 24 hours of processing, the waste water at the Stockholm treatment plants gets siphoned off into the Baltic sea (where we swim, sail, and play all summer). The Baltic sea has been on record as one of the most polluted seas on Earth. Sweden is constantly investing money in the countries that rim the Baltic in order to support their pollution treatment systems. Stockholm's archipelago has lost an unaccountable amount of life over the last few centuries. However, for the past couple of years studies are showing that the archipelago is getting healthier!
Way to go Stockholm!
I hope you think about this the next time you consider dumping that trash (no, toilet paper is not trash in this instance), or those extra few drops of cleaning solution in the toilet "because they clean it anyway".
You'll find more of what they have to say on their website:
http://www.stockholmvatten.se/en/Purified-wastewater-to-protect-the-environment/
