Mesakalk – ett miljövänligt material eller skadligt avfall?

Sammanfattning: Sweden is experiencing major problems with the management of waste from nearly every industry within the country. There is I big waste of waste materials which are placed in landfill when they have potential of being reused. Landfills usually leach contaminated water leading to the contamination of soils and watercourses. Lime mud from the paper industry is currently at 133 000 tones. The purpose of this paper is to study the Sweden’s environmental legislation to see if it has flaws that may explain why the lime mud is not re-used even though it may have potentially useful properties. The result is based on an analysis of documents of legal provisions and completed schemes interpreted against the mesa content. The answer is that the law is neither an obstacle and opportunities and it is not possible to provide for law neither promotes nor prevents lime reuse. It is also clear that there is little research on the environmental gains and losses that would arise if the mesa came in contact with nature. What is clear is that there is an unclear division of responsibilities between authorities regarding Environmental Protection Agency and the County administrative boards of Sweden that might complicate the reuse of lime mud.