Sorting correctly: food waste, residual waste and packaging

Your municipality collects food and residual waste from homes. Packaging is collected nearby or taken to municipal collection points. Check which bins and collection points serve your address.

• Food waste: leftovers, peelings, coffee grounds, tea bags and other food or cooking scraps. Collect these in your municipality's approved food waste bag.
• Residual waste: what remains after recyclable materials have been separated, including cotton buds, vacuum cleaner bags, nappies, ash and worn-out everyday items.
• Packaging: plastic, paper, metal and glass that contained a product. Sort by material rather than by the product it held.
• Newspapers and recovered paper: newspapers, catalogues, home-office paper and books have a separate collection at the recycling point.

Across almost all of Sweden, residual waste is incinerated to recover energy. Landfilling combustible household waste is prohibited, making it especially important to separate recyclable materials first.

Municipalities have been responsible for household packaging collection since 2024. Producers fund the system; FTI is part of its history. By 2027, collection close to homes must cover paper, plastic, metal and glass throughout each municipality. See the timetable from Naturvårdsverket.

• Plastic packaging: food trays, bottles, bags, film and caps. Loose pieces of plastic do not belong here unless they are packaging.
• Paper packaging: corrugated cardboard, boxes, milk and juice cartons, and paper bags.
• Metal packaging: food tins, aluminium trays, bottle tops and completely empty aerosol cans.
• Glass packaging: bottles and jars, separated into coloured and clear glass. Sort metal caps and lids with metal packaging.

Packaging should be empty: scrape out leftovers, but there is no need to wash it. Deposit bottles and cans do not belong at the recycling point. Return them to a shop so they can be recycled through the deposit-return system.

The most common mistake is treating the residual waste bin as a container for everything. Food scraps placed there cannot be used to produce biogas, while packaging is burned instead of being turned into new products.

• Food scraps in residual waste: this is the largest sorting error found in Swedish waste-composition studies. Almost a third of residual waste consists of food that should have been separated.
• Electrical waste in the rubbish: phones, cables and battery-powered toys can cause fires in collection vehicles and incinerators. Take them to a recycling centre or a retailer.
• Hazardous waste in residual waste: paint, pesticides, solvents and mercury thermometers must go to the hazardous-waste collection at a recycling centre.
• Batteries: collect these separately in battery collection boxes, often red, at supermarkets or recycling points.
• Plastic bags around food waste: never use ordinary carrier bags. Use only the bag approved by your municipality.

The two Swedish terms are often confused. An återvinningsstation is a small recycling point with containers for packaging and newspapers, often near a supermarket or in a residential area. Use it for everyday recycling.

An återvinningscentral, or ÅVC, is the municipality's larger drive-in facility. It accepts items that do not fit or do not belong in ordinary bins: bulky waste, electrical waste, hazardous waste, garden waste, small amounts of building waste and metal. Household waste is normally accepted free of charge, while building and demolition waste may incur a fee. Check the opening hours: many centres have queues on Saturdays, so a weekday visit can save time.

Each municipality publishes a collection calendar, as a PDF, in an app or on its website. It shows when food waste, residual waste and packaging are collected from your address. Frequencies vary: food waste is often collected fortnightly and residual waste every two or four weeks. Some municipalities collect weekly in summer when food waste causes more smells.

If you miss a collection, your bags must wait for the next one, and collection crews may leave an overflowing bin unemptied. BinMinder can send a free reminder the evening before collection to help you get your bin out on time.