--- title: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer description: A new law in Sweden requires people to recycle their food waste. canonical: https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/ author: Andrew Johnson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-08-27T16:30:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T18:11:02.364Z article:section: Climate og:title: Watch: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer og:description: A new law in Sweden requires people to recycle their food waste. og:url: https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe1f6e2e8b37892a/698a5a189d83e88f24b9a6d8/GettyImages-1279138460.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5700 og:image:height: 3206 og:image:alt: Cropped hand of senior man throwing garbage in dustbin at home og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer twitter:description: A new law in Sweden requires people to recycle their food waste. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe1f6e2e8b37892a/698a5a189d83e88f24b9a6d8/GettyImages-1279138460.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Watch: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=062ddd19-65a9-4c0f-94d5-a2f08a84e954&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A New Swedish Law is Helping to Turn Food Waste Into Fuel [Watch (HLS stream): A New Swedish Law is Helping to Turn Food Waste Into Fuel](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xgpGFyxM.m3u8) (1:50)  _Published 2024-08-21. For decades, in some areas of Sweden, it has been mandatory for residents to recycle their food waste. A new law makes the practice compulsory country-wide to lower the country’s per capita food waste by 20 percent by 2025._ Aug 27, 2024 4:30 PM UTC For decades, in some areas of Sweden, it has been mandatory for residents to recycle their food waste. A new law makes the practice compulsory country-wide to lower the country’s per capita food waste by 20 percent by 2025.  by [Andrew Johnson](https://time.com/author/andrew-johnson/)  ## Andrew Johnson Aug 27, 2024 4:30 PM UTC For decades, in some areas of Sweden, it has been mandatory for residents to recycle their food waste. A new law makes the practice compulsory across the entire country, as part of an effort to lower Sweden's per capita food waste by 20% by 2025. ## Transcript [00:03] I think it's a good thing, [00:05] actually for keeping people accountable for the food that they throw away. [00:11] Then also, maybe if you make a law out of it, [00:14] you can make people think a bit differently about how much food they waste. [00:21] In some regions in Sweden, [00:24] it has been mandatory for decades to start out the food waste, [00:27] but now as of 1 January this year, [00:30] 2024, it became mandatory for the whole country. [00:43] Compressed biofuel. [00:45] Some of it is just sent to our little gas station that is just behind here. [00:51] And a lot of the other compressed gas is sent [00:55] around to gas stations here locally in the Stockholm area. [01:07] So if you sort out the food waste, [01:09] it can be biogas and bio fertilizer, [01:12] and these products will help us reduce the CO two emissions and other greenhouse gases. [01:18] And by using biofertilizer, for example, [01:22] we don't have to use finite resources such as phosphorus. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/"},"headline":"Watch: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer","datePublished":"2024-08-27T16:30:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T18:11:02.364Z","description":"A new law in Sweden requires people to recycle their food waste.","url":"https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/","keywords":["climate","sponsorshipblock","AmazonFutures24","Futures Innovative"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Andrew Johnson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/andrew-johnson/"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/climate/","name":"climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7013480/food-waste-recycle-sweden/","name":"Watch: Sweden is Turning Food Waste Into Fuel and Fertilizer"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A New Swedish Law is Helping to Turn Food Waste Into Fuel","description":"For decades, in some areas of Sweden, it has been mandatory for residents to recycle their food waste. 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