Waste management
Today there are 15 recycling houses with full recycling and composting facilities for the 1800 inhabitants of Augustenborg. The aim is that 90 percent of the waste from Augustenborg will be collected and recycled, re-used etc. Today we have reached about 70 percent recycling. The houses were based on design ideas from some of the residents who had been involved in the initial recycling pilot and who visited recycling programmes in other Swedish cities.
The traditional refuse chutes in the houses have been closed, and today all inhabitants leave their waste for recycling at the recycling houses instead. In the recycling houses there are containers for paper, cardboard, coloured glass, uncoloured glass, metal, plastic and batteries.
Food waste
Composting food waste started early on in the 13 recycling houses in the yards which then was the largest neighbourhood system in Sweden. More than a third of the waste was turned into fertile compost in less than eight weeks. In 2008 Augstenborg was chosen as a pilot area for separating food waste to make biogas, a scheme that turned out so succesful that it today covers the entire city. There is also a collection of hazardous waste, electronics and fluorescent tubes. The collection of electronic waste did generate 3 250 kg in it's first six months.