Clean city?

With low population-density, abundant renewable energy, little heavy industry and a fairly outdoorsy culture, Iceland enjoys an excellent environmental image. But we all know that beauty is only skin deep… is Iceland's green façade hiding some ugly secrets?

The past

Until the Second World War, Iceland was a poor, rural society and this meant a relatively low environmental impact, but also a low-tech approach to environmental protection.

Icelanders have always used natural hot water for bathing and washing clothes and even to help baking bread - but it wasn't until 1930 that it was first used to heat buildings. The first building was the (then) new Austurbæjarskóli, then about 60 neighbouring houses were added, and it slowly moved further afield from there. Before this, fire and warm clothing were the only options - but now 83% of Icelandic homes are heated by natural geothermal water.

Open-pit burning of refuse was common practice until shockingly recently (the early 1990s) and inadequate sewage treatment facilities are also a notable feature of Iceland's history. So, with massive improvements in these fields, it would seem the country is only getting better and better for the environment.

The waste company Sorpa was established in 1987 in an effort to bring waste management in the Greater Reykjavík Area up to standard. Now Iceland has very good waste disposal infrastructure - but that's not going to save the planet by itself, especially if it is not being used to its full potential.

The present

Some of the major environmental problems today are over-consumption, waste management and atmospheric pollution - all problems associated with wealth.

"I'm sad to say there is a culture in Iceland of spending a lot more than we need - maybe partly because for the first half of the last century we didn't have anything," says Left Green Movement MP Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir." We first saw money during World War II and we've been playing catch-up and consuming with a capital C ever since. This is a cultural phenomenon and a big problem."

Dr. Guðrún Pétursdóttir, director of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of Iceland, agrees. "Icelanders have always had to live off nature and to exploit it in every conceivable way in order to survive in these harsh surroundings. The notion of sustainability is young and only just beginning to influence people's behaviour in this country. Even the authorities act as if they do not quite understand what sustainability requires."

There are two striking examples of this over-consumption, in the amount of rubbish we create and in the under-utilised bus system. Not to mention the number of excessively large cars on the streets.

Four per cent of trips in Greater Reykjavík were made by bus in 2004, which is slightly less than the European average of 25%. And there are more gas-guzzling 4x4 vehicles here than in most of Europe too: fully half of the cars that passed during the time it took to write the last two paragraphs. Not quite a scientific study, but you get the point. Of course a rugged country like this needs its share of super jeeps - but how many of the ones parked outside the supermarket will ever go off-road?

Iceland seems to be very good at concocting headline-grabbing ideas without tackling root problems like the one above, or so says Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir. "Some of the work put into the 'hydrogen revolution' has been a 'greenwash' - the government made this hydrogen mask in order to hide the fact that they were drowning a large part of the Icelandic highlands."

While this article isn't about dams and smelters (though they are certainly very relevant to the environmental debate), an example of Kolbrún's greenwash theory might be found in the new enthusiasm for methane - is it this year's hydrogen?

"We harness the methane from the landfill site for hybrid cars and for electricity generation" explains Ragna Ingibjörg Halldórsdóttir, Quality and Information Manager for the municipal waste management company Sorpa. Methane cars are now commercially available, but so far only about 60 have been sold, according to Ragna.

Reykjavík has three methane powered waste trucks and two or three buses too, which is of course a good thing - if only for the sense of 'full-circle-ness' that comes from having dustbin lorries that run on their own landfill waste. In the end though, whether the bus runs on diesel, methane or hydrogen, it is irrelevant if people drive their cars instead.

Back to waste: according to the European statistics monitor Eurostat, Iceland created roughly double the municipal waste in 2003 (the most recent data available) compared to the European average. Roughly 1.05 tonnes per person, compared to Poland's 250 kg. The EU-15 average was less than 600 kg. The Eurostat bar graph in question caused one of the experts interviewed for this article to exclaim "Jesus Christ" in a brief moment of lost composure.

Ragna Ingibjörg Halldórsdóttir has first-hand experience of why this figure should be so high. "At The Good Shepherd [Sorpa's second-hand shop], we see things from IKEA still in the container that haven't been unpacked and also things from the new cheap shop in Smáralind that hasn't even been open a year yet."

There are notable success stories though - Iceland recycles 35% of all waste, which is neither exceptionally bad, nor exceptionally good by European standards. A large part of this figure though, is due to the fact that a massive 84% of all cans and plastic and glass bottles come back to Sorpa for recycling. The reason for that is that a 10 krónur return deposit is payable on each - which means that children collect them door-to-door to raise money for their sports clubs.

Another problem is that Iceland uses a great deal of electricity. Although almost entirely generated by renewable means, it takes a lot of money and environmental damage to create dams and geothermal stations. "Usually every bulb in the house is lit if just one family member is home and in public buildings, we are practically lighting up the sky," says Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir. "We have not been educating the general public in matters of conservationism. The authorities need to fix that."

The future

"People should be able to choose between collection and getting paid to take things in," says the Green Movement MP. While many households choose to sort their waste and take recyclable items to one of the Sorpa depots, that isn't even an option for people without access to a car. It's not often that you hear that you can't help the environment unless you are a car owner.

"The problem is that in order to be able to recycle, the individual person has to drive kilometre after kilometre to get to these stations" Kolbrún continues. "And that's our problem [parliament's]."

Dr. Guðrún Pétursdóttir would like the authorities to collect sorted recycling as part of their normal service to every home. "Recycling, however, is only a part of the answer for minimising waste. Equally - or even more important - is reducing household waste."

She believes in a system of "green incentives", such as "pay-as-you-throw" to encourage people to reduce their household waste. Pay-as-you-throw is the idea (currently being piloted in France) whereby household wheelie bins weigh your refuse and snitch on you to the authorities so they can tax you accordingly. Such a law may not be entirely popular until such time as businesses stop over-packaging their goods, though.

Iceland already levies a green tax on packaging. "There is a recycling fund in operation, added as import duty on packaging entering Iceland," says Ragna Ingibjörg. "The scheme has been running since 2001. They have a fee that they put on plastic, paper packaging, corrugated cardboard and hazardous materials." The proceeds go to companies helping to ensure that the products are disposed of responsibly.

Iceland has the same task to perform as every other country and significantly more space and renewable energy possibilities than most with which to achieve it. That task is reducing pollution and saving the planet. Perhaps the most surprising thing to come from this article is just how slow a start the country is making. "Somehow we have managed to hide these facts from the rest of the world - it's one of our domestic secrets," says Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir.

Text by Alex Elliott