[CogitoCogito]

That article says that 99% of waste is recycled in Sweden, but also points out that a large part of that is incinerated. I don't really understand how incineration can be called recycling. The cycle literally ends at that point.

That's not to say it's better than many alternatives (the article claims it's better than most landfills), but let's call it what it is.

[wongarsu]

If you replace an oil-fired power plant with an incineration plant you save oil that you can now use to make high quality plastic. If you squint hard enough that is recycling trash to oil.

Of course oil-fired power plants aren't really used anymore (at grid scale), so it's more like recycling trash into coal or natural gas.

[CogitoCogito]

The fact that incinerating trash may lead to using slightly oil is not recycling. Just like driving your car more slowly to increase its efficiency is not recycling. I don't remotely understand your reasoning.

[msl]

> The cycle literally ends at that point.

Not quite. It turns out that even the ashes have their uses [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incinerator_bottom_ash