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Local Sweden
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
INSIDE SWEDEN: Spring getaways, abolishing PR, and barrels of human waste
The Local's Nordic editor Richard Orange rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter. Advertisement I'm writing this on the way to Hannover on the second leg of my annual rail odyssey to my family in the UK. But rather than moan about the trains being late (again, which they are), I thought I'd cover the viral - or perhaps more accurately, bacterial - story about the Danish chef couple who abandoned their so-called luxury eco-retreat, leaving behind 158 barrels of poo. After they claimed this was in fact "very normal" in Sweden in an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, a member of The Local's staff revealed, somewhat grudgingly, that they, too, store poo at their summer house, with eight barrels in an outbuilding. We felt this was something we needed to get to the bottom of so I contacted Charlotte Löfgren, senior adviser for sewage collection at Swedish Regions, the umbrella organisation for Sweden's municipalities. She confirmed that it is, indeed, "not uncommon" in areas that aren't connected to municipal sewage systems. It is even possible to compost it yourself, as the couple claimed they were doing. "You can do it, but you don't keep it in barrels like that, and you don't have 158 of them," Löfgren said. "Composting is for a summer house that you go to for four weeks a year. It's not for this kind of resort. It's too much. What are you supposed to do with it?" Advertisement Our puzzles move from strength to strength. This week our crossword touches on the latest news and general knowledge about Sweden. Our word search has a special fika theme! Play here! When the government announced their Tidö Agreement with the far-right Sweden Democrats back in October 2022, one of the clauses that caused readers the most worry was the proposal to abolish permanent residency, especially after the then boss of Migration Agency said he'd "be worried" about that if he was an immigrant. Last week, the interim conclusions to this inquiry were delivered, with asylum seekers and some others stripped of the right to receive permanent residency. We broke down the details of who will be affected. The possibility of removing permanent residency permits already awarded will be discussed in the final report in October, and it's hard to see how this wouldn't be in some way retroactive. We asked Sweden's migration minister Johan Forssell last week to respond to foreigners losing faith in Sweden because he wants the proposed stricter citizenship laws to apply retroactively to applications which have already been submitted. He retorted that this didn't qualify as retroactive. We wanted to check if he was right, so we spoke to three professors of constitutional or administrative law, one of whom said he was, and two of whom said he wasn't. Advertisement What else have we been writing about this week? The entire board of the failing battery company Northvolt resigned in the middle of the bankruptcy proceedings, which doesn't bode well for the future of the company. A government inquiry proposed surprisingly far-reaching reforms to Sweden's much-criticised free school system, although critics complained the changes would leave the worst aspects intact. We explained some of the most important proposals, and I looked at how it might affect the 2026 election. The head of Sweden's care worker union complained in an opinion piece that the proposed abolition of the 'track changes' system would have serious consequences for Swedish healthcare by forcing many essential workers to leave the country. It's Easter next weekend, so to help you plan we updated our list of what's open and what's closed in Sweden on different days of the holiday. If you're planning to use the week to see some new parts of Sweden, our readers had some excellent suggestions for spring getaways. Now I'll get back to my own spring getaway. It looks like I might make that crucial Hannover connection. See you after Easter! Did I mention that our word search this week has a special fika theme? Play here!
Local Sweden
11-04-2025
- General
- Local Sweden
FACT CHECK: Is it really normal to store barrels of human waste in Sweden?
A Danish couple has achieved viral - or possible bacterial - notoriety after it was reported that they left 158 barrels of human excrement after fleeing their bankrupt nature retreat. The couple claim this is 'very normal' in Sweden. Is it? Advertisement Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, two chefs from Copenhagen, abandoned their purported 'eco-retreat', Stedsans in Halland, last year, leaving behind substantial debts to Swedish and Danish tax authorities and a significant environmental clean-up job. Commenting on the barrels they left behind, they wrote on social media that: "For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing. It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own shit." The property's new owner, they claimed, had been informed about the barrels and was informed that they could be used as compost on the property. "Half of them are ready to use this spring, the other half is ready in one year, following the guidelines of Swedish law," they wrote. So is it normal? Well yes actually, it is, kind of. "It's not uncommon to do this: maybe not so much in the Stockholm area. But when you get out in the countryside where you don't have a municipal waste system," explained Charlotte Löfgren, senior adviser for sewage collection at Swedish Regions, the umbrella organisation for Sweden's municipalities. Summer houses in the country in Sweden might have a torrtoalett, where the front part collects urine in one container, and the back part collects poo in a barrel. The urine can normally be deposited on the householder's own land, while the poo will be stored in barrels to be collected by the municipality. "You need to have a certain type of container for this," she said. "This is very strict, because it has to be safe and it should not leak. No one who picks it up wants to be covered with poo, you know. It's quite regulated. You don't just take a bucket and leave it there." It's also common to have a composting toilet or mulltoa. Here the latrine is lined with bark mulch, wood chips or peat, which facilitates composting. This can also be collected by the municipality, but it often composted on the site, and then used to fertilise the surrounding soil. READ ALSO: Eight tonnes of human faeces spilled in Swedish town Advertisement What are the laws in Sweden? The main law governing the handling of poo is the Swedish Environmental Code, or Miljöbalken, which gives local municipalities the responsibility for handling "latrine from dry toilets and comparable solutions". "It is allowed in the legislation but the municipality is allowed to have regulations and these can differ between different municipalities," Löfgren said. "They might say 'if we're going to collect it from you, you have to provide it in the correct barrel. It cannot weigh more than a certain number of kilograms. It has be available for pickup at a certain place.'" Advertisement Can you compost it yourself? Hansen and Helbæk claimed in their post that they had been composting the waste themselves for spreading later on. "You can do that, but then you don't keep it in barrels like that, and you don't have 158 of them," Löfgren said. "Composting is for a summer house that you go to for maybe four weeks a year. It's not for this kind of resort. It's too much. What are you supposed to do with it? You can't spread it out in nature." In addition, to do this, they would have had to apply for and receive permission from the local municipality, something Daniel Helsing, the head of building and environment at the local Hylte municipality, told the UK's Guardian newspaper Hansen and Helbæk had never done. "They probably just wanted to skip the cost, because it's expensive to have it picked up by the municipality," Löfgren said.
Local Sweden
11-04-2025
- General
- Local Sweden
FACT CHECK: Is it normal to store barrels of shit in Sweden?
A Danish couple has achieved viral - or possible bacterial - notoriety after it was reported that they left 158 barrels of human excrement after fleeing their bankrupt nature retreat. The couple claim this is 'very normal' in Sweden. Is it? Advertisement Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, two chefs from Copenhagen, abandoned their purported 'eco-retreat', Stedsans in Halland, last year, leaving behind substantial debts to Swedish and Danish tax authorities and a significant environmental clean-up job. Commenting on the barrels they left behind, they wrote on social media that "For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing. It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own shit." The property's new owner, they claimed, had been informed about the barrels and was informed that they could be used as compost on the property. "Half of them are ready to use this spring, the other half is ready in one year, following the guidelines of Swedish law," they wrote. So is it normal? Well, yes actually. It kind of is. "It's not uncommon to do this: maybe not so much in the Stockholm area. But when you get out in the countryside where you don't have a municipal waste system," explained Charlotte Löfgren, senior advisor for waste collection at Swedish Regions, the umbrella organisation for Sweden's municipalities. Summer houses in the country in Sweden might have a torrtoalett, where the front part collects urine in one container, and the back part collects poo in a barrel. The urine can normally be deposited on the householder's own land, while the poo will be stored in barrels to be collected by the municipality. "You need to have a certain type of container for this," she said. "This is very strict, because it has to be safe and it should not leak. No one who picks it up wants to be covered with poo, you know. It's quite regulated. You don't just take a bucket and leave it there." It's also common to have a composting toilet or mulltoa. Here the latrine is lined with bark mulch, wood chips or peat, which facilitates composting. This can also be collected by the municipality, but it often composted on the site, and then used to fertilise the surrounding soil. READ ALSO: Eight tonnes of human faeces spilled in Swedish town Advertisement What are the laws in Sweden? The main law governing the handling of poo is the Swedish Environmental Code, or Miljöbalken, which gives local municipalities the responsibility for handling "latrine from dry toilets and comparable solutions". "It is allowed in the legislation but the municipality is allowed to have regulations and these can differ between different municipalities," Löfgren said. "They might say 'if we're going to collect it from you, you have to provide it in the correct barrel. It cannot weigh more than a certain number of kilograms. It has be available for pickup at a certain place.'" Advertisement Can you compost it yourself? Hansen and Helbæk claimed in their post that they had been composting the waste themselves for spreading later on. "You can do that, but then you don't keep it in barrels like that, and you don't have 158 of them," Löfgren said. "Composting is for a summer house that you go to for maybe four weeks a year. It's not for this kind of resort. It's too much. What are you supposed to do with it? You can't spread it out in nature." In addition, to do this, they would have had to apply for and receive permission from the local municipality, something Daniel Helsing, the head of building and environment at the local Hylte municipality, told the UK's Guardian newspaper Hansen and Helbæk had never done. "They probably just wanted to skip the cost, because it's expensive to have it picked up by the municipality," Löfgren said.
