1 Introduction and organic waste situation

Latest revision 06/2010

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Since 2002 it is not allowed to landfill combustible waste and since 2005 it is not allowed to landfill organic waste in Sweden. There is a landfill tax aswell. Altogether, this means that recycling of organic waste is promoted and the capacity of biological treatment is increasing.

About 50 percent of the Swedish municipalities have separate collection of compostable household waste with central treatment. 344 500 t of organic waste (180 000 t household and restaurant waste + 350 000 t greenwaste) was recovered in 2009. Most composting plants (appr. 80) are rather small (<5000 t/a), while only about 25 composting plants are considered to be large. 20 anaerobic digestion plants treating waste are working and several new large scale AD plants are planned. The latter development is very much encouraged by go-vernment and society, especially when the generated biogas is used as a fuel for vehicles. Mechanical-biological-pretreatment is out of discussion in order not do disturb the growing composting business.

2 Legal framework for the organic waste stream and the compost production

Biowaste in Sweden consists nearly by 100 % of waste from households with only a small amount of organic material from gardens. Park and garden waste is mainly vegetable waste resulting from the normal mana-gement of parks and large gardens. Contrary to most of the other European countries Sweden allows to use animal manure for composting and anaerobic digestion. Of course if they manage to achieve ABP.

The Swedish Parliament has established 15 environmental quality objectives, such as “Clean air” and “Good-quality groundwater”, to guide Sweden towards a sustainable society. The 15 environmental objectives will function as benchmarks for all environment-related development in Sweden, regardless of where it is implemented and by whom. The overriding aim is to solve all the major environmental problems within one generation. One of the environmental quality objectives includes statements as follow:

By 2010, 35 % of the foodwaste from households, restaurants and grocery stores must be recovered through biological treatment. Homecomposting included.

By 2010 foodwaste and similar waste from foodprocessing industries must be recovered through biological treatment. The foodwaste must be source separated and not include other waste.

In the Waste Management Action Plan (Aktionsplan Avfall) it is suggested that the waste should be separated at source. The strategy of SEPA is mainly to divert the waste streams from landfilling. SEPA prescribed that from the year 2002 combustible waste has to be collected separately and may not be landfilled. From the year 2005 no organic waste is allowed to be landfilled. The landfill tax (40 EURO/ton) will make the economical figures of biological waste treatment techniques competitive to landfilling, which is very cheap in Sweden.

As part of a countrywide strategy to connect the material and energy flow between urban and rural areas in Sweden, there is general agreement on the importance of returning nutrients from urban to agricultural soil. The policy is to stimulate appropriate use of sewage sludge and treated organic waste in agriculture. Compost from source separated household waste is permitted for use in ecological farming and under certain circumstances in ecological cultivation.

In 1999 the Swedish Waste Managemant Association (Avfall Sverige) and the Swedish EPA initiated a pro-ject in order to develop voluntary quality assurance systems for compost and digestate from organic wastes. The project was financed by Swedish Association of Waste Management RVF and the Swedish EPA. This system demands that input material should be of clean organic origin and source separated. The system is quite similar to the German version.
The project goes on and at the moment there are ten anaerobic digestion- and three compostplants who have managed to received a certificate.

3 Contacts and sources of information

Avfall Sverige
Swedish Waste Management
Angelika Blom
Prostgatan 2
211 25 MALMÖ
SWEDEN
Tel.: +46 (0) 40 35 66 23
E-post angelika.blom@avfallsverige.se
Swedish EPA (Naturvårdsverket)
SE-106 48 Stockholm, Sweden

Tel.: +46 (0) 8 698 10 00
Fax: F +46 (0) 8 20 29 25