The recycling system in Iceland is designed to transport plastic out of the country to be recycled elsewhere. Not too long ago, a recycling project in Hveragerði by the name of Pure North began recycling plastic using geothermal energy. In an interview with RÚV last year, Áslaug Hulda Jónsdóttir, in charge of business and development at Pure North said: “According to research that has been done, this is up to ninety percent savings in carbon emissions. Compared to recycling centres in Europe and Asia, we use less water and less energy”
Garðar Finnson is an entrepreneur in Mývatnssveit who has been designing and developing a more eco-friendly option for hay rolls. He was inspired by Pure North, and decided to experiment creating a reusable hay roll bag, with the possibility to use a geothermal heater to clean the bags between years.
RÚV reports that Garðar has now come up with a prototype that he is happy with and plans to sew 100 bags for the summer. They will then be tested in collaboration with farmers during haymaking this summer.
“In order for the bags to last longer and stay in this cycle, you only get a subscription to the bags. You pay an annual fee and always get a freshly cleaned and renovated bag,” says Garðar. He also confesses that he did not think development would take this long. “At first the idea was very simple and I thought that about two months later I would have finished the idea and brought a product to market, but this is a little more complicated than that”.
Garðar believes that it is time to find new, better ways to do things. “We can not go on indefinitely in what we are doing right now,” he explains. “I believe in a circular economy and want to create a valuable product that we adapt to, instead of just having a single-use option”.
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