Why Sweden Imports Rubbish: How Its Waste-to-Energy System Works

Sweden has not literally run out of garbage. What it has done is build so much capacity to burn household rubbish for heat and electricity that its own residual waste no longer fills the furnaces, so it buys in waste from other countries. Today well under 1% of Swedish household waste ends up in a landfill. Roughly half is burned in waste-to-energy plants, about a third is recycled as material, and most of the rest is composted or turned into biogas.

That is the short answer to the viral claim. The longer story is more interesting, because it shows both what a country can achieve with clear rules and why environmental groups still argue about whether burning rubbish is the right goal.

Where the "Sweden runs out of garbage" story came from

Around 2012 and 2013, radio and online reports noticed something unusual: Swedish incinerators were taking shipments of rubbish from neighbouring Norway. At the time the figure quoted was about 80,000 tonnes a year. Norway paid Sweden a fee to accept the waste, Sweden turned it into district heating and power, and the leftover ash, which can contain dioxins and heavy metals, was reportedly sent back to Norway for disposal.

Headlines quickly compressed this into "Sweden has run out of trash." It made a great story, but it mixed up two things. Sweden still produces plenty of waste. The country simply sends very little of it to landfill, and its incinerators were built with more capacity than domestic residual waste could fill. Importing waste is a business decision about keeping expensive plants running, not proof of a rubbish-free society.

Swedish officials at the time even said they would rather receive waste from countries that still landfill most of their rubbish, such as parts of southern and eastern Europe, because diverting it from dumps there would bring a bigger environmental gain than taking it from Norway, which already had its own incinerators.

How Swedish household waste is handled now

According to the Nordic Investment Bank, which has financed Swedish waste plants, less than 1% of household waste goes to landfill. The rest is split roughly like this:

• Energy recovery: slightly under half, burned in about 30 to 35 waste-to-energy plants.
• Material recycling: about a third, including paper, glass, metal and plastic packaging.
• Biological treatment: around 16%, mainly food waste turned into compost or biogas.

The often-repeated "4% landfilled" figure came from older statistics that covered a broader set of waste. It is not wrong for its time, but it is out of date as a description of household rubbish.

The heat matters most. Swedish cities rely heavily on district heating, where hot water from a central plant is piped to homes and offices. Waste-to-energy plants supply around a fifth of that heat. In 2016 the bank put the total at heating for about 960,000 households and electricity for about 560,000 homes. Later estimates, with more plants, are higher.

Why Sweden imports waste

Once a large incinerator is built, it needs a steady flow of fuel to run efficiently, and it earns money from "gate fees" paid by whoever sends the waste. Sweden's capacity has grown faster than its own supply of residual rubbish, so plants look abroad. In 2024 Sweden imported about 3.86 million tonnes of waste, mainly from the United Kingdom, Norway and Italy, and roughly 2.5 million tonnes of the waste burned in Swedish plants that year came from other European countries.

For the sending country, exporting waste can be cheaper than landfill taxes at home. For Sweden, it keeps heat flowing to homes. On paper both sides win, and rubbish that would otherwise rot in a landfill and release methane produces useful energy instead.

The policy choices behind the numbers

Sweden's low landfill rate did not happen by accident or because Swedes are naturally tidier than everyone else. It was built through decades of policy:

• A landfill tax introduced in 2000 made dumping more expensive than other options.
• A ban on landfilling combustible waste followed in 2002, and a ban on landfilling organic waste came in the mid-2000s.
• Producer responsibility rules require companies selling packaging, newspapers, electronics and tyres to fund collection and recycling.
• A long tradition of municipal district heating meant there was a ready market for the heat from incineration.

Households play their part by sorting waste into many fractions, often with recycling stations close to home and deposit schemes for bottles and cans. But the structure set by law and local government did most of the work.

Is burning rubbish really green?

Here the story gets more complicated than the cheerful headlines suggested. The European Union's "waste hierarchy" ranks options from best to worst: prevent waste, reuse, recycle, recover energy, and only then dispose. Energy recovery sits near the bottom, above landfill but below recycling.

Critics such as Zero Waste Europe argue that large incinerators can work against recycling, because once a city has committed to a plant, it needs a steady stream of rubbish to burn. They also point out that burning plastic, which is made from oil, releases fossil carbon dioxide. Sweden's own environmental protection agency notes that most of the climate emissions from incineration come from fossil-based plastics in the waste.

Defenders, including the Swedish waste management association Avfall Sverige, answer that energy recovery is the best available option for residual waste that cannot be recycled, and that it is far better than landfill. Modern plants also use advanced filters, so air pollution is much lower than from older incinerators, although the toxic ash and filter residues still have to be stored safely.

Both sides agree on one point: the ideal is less residual waste in the first place. As recycling improves across Europe, the supply of waste to import may shrink, and Swedish plants may need to burn more biofuel such as forestry waste instead.

What other countries can take from Sweden

The useful lessons are less about incinerators and more about the system around them:

• Make landfill expensive or illegal for waste that could be used another way.
• Give recycling a clear structure, with producers paying for collection and convenient drop-off points.
• Use the heat. Burning waste only makes sense where there is a district heating network or industry that needs the energy. Otherwise much of it is wasted.
• Avoid overbuilding. Plants sized for today's rubbish can become a reason to keep producing it tomorrow.

Denmark has gone a similar way. Copenhagen's waste-to-energy plant even has a ski slope on its roof, a project we looked at in CopenHill: A Power Plant With a Public Recreation Roof.

Common myths about Sweden and waste

"Sweden recycles 99% of its rubbish." Not quite. Less than 1% goes to landfill, but about half of household waste is burned rather than recycled. Recovery is not the same as recycling.

"Sweden has run out of garbage." No. It still produces plenty of household waste. It imports waste because its incinerators have spare capacity.

"Importing waste is purely a favour to other countries." It is a trade. Sweden is paid to accept the waste and sells the resulting heat and power.

The real takeaway is quieter than the viral version: with firm rules, good infrastructure and decades of steady effort, a country can almost end landfilling. The next challenge, for Sweden and everyone else, is producing less rubbish to begin with.

Sources: Nordic Investment Bank: Sweden, waste too valuable to throw away (2016); Scandinavia Standard: Sweden's waste imports in 2024; InsideHook: why Sweden imports garbage and its critics (2016); original 2013 report via True Activist, based on Public Radio International.

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