Sweden

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An example of a dumpster dived food in Sweden (as experienced by Sigurdas, in autumn 2008): cashews and walnuts (~2kg), organic cashews (~1kg), raisins (~5,5kg), berberis berries (~1,7kg), potatoes (~1kg), muesli (1 kg), Hot Taco Spice Mix (around 400g, for 40 servings), herbal salt, salad (250g), light soy sauce, orange marmalade, vitaminized syrup. In one night. From one place.

Sweden is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it is no wonder that you can get basically everything there without paying anything. Even though dumpster diving in Sweden is less possible that in countries like United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark, it is still doable if you know right places and right time to come to a dumpster. Some succesfull divers manage to get most of their meals from dumpsters.

Besides dumpster diving, wild foraging is a great source of food even for those living in cities, as well as eco-events with their clothing/stuff swaps are a great way to get rid of old stuff while gaining some new one.

One of the greatest providers of stuff like furniture, clothes, appliances, etc. is a waste room called "Grovsoprum" in Swedish. For more info on it see here.

Clothes, books and some other items as well as hairdresser service can be provided for free during the Market Days organized by local Really Really Free Market movement activists - actually, you can organize such event yourself!

Contents

[edit] Cities and towns

[edit] Dumpster diving

In Sweden, there aren't specific laws on practice of dumpster diving: according to Swedish police (link 1, link 2), one is allowed to take the contents of a dumpster if the latter one is not locked (or if it is not protected by any other means). There are hardly known any cases of divers being arrested and put on trial for taking any protected trash either, and you can be pretty much relaxed about it, although you are on your own risk. It is not reccommended to tresspass private territories and break the locks though - if you know places with unlocked dumpsters, better try those.

Beware of "Lidl", though: there was a case when "Lidl" employees poured a corrosive liquid, the equivalent of chlorine, on food that would be discarded, in order to keep homeless people away from dumpster diving (this case was filed for police investigation, and the managing director of Lidl Sweden called the incident "extremely regrettable").

A short documentary with an interview in Swedish/English with a dumpster diver in Sweden:

[edit] Dumpster diving gallery

Opening a container full of roasted soy beans, sunflower seeds, chocolate, etc. Location: the suburbs of Stockholm.

Many of these tomatoes are still edible.

So much food! Just take what looks better - one can't take everything just because it will be too heavy to carry it home.

What a waste!

Dairy products aren't even in a dumpster - just take and go!

All this food could feed a whole family for weeks - instead, it is thrown away.

Being a freegan, day 10 of documentation, Sigurdas' experience.

Few boxes of roasted sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (eco!), roasted soy beans, and HUGE amount of chocolate! This was a part of a one night dumpster diving catch in Stockholm. Together with other food dumpstered that night it was worth 3500 Swedish crowns (440 USD)!

Dumpster diver in action. In fact, in this case he didn't even have to "dive": all food was neatly packed in crates and boxes.

Free food - a reality.

Cup of coffee in the morning, fruit for the lunch...

One can be really picky while "diving" for food in places like this: you just take the best, the rest either goes to landfill or to some other freegans' homes.

More pictures can be found under Category:Sweden.

[edit] Wild foraging

Most of the Swedish territory is a forest. The forest is very rich in food edible for humans. Even bigger cities like Stockholm are surrounded by such forest - it might take you just 10 minutes of a bike ride to get to the forest where in the season you can find plenty of edible herbs, berries, and mushrooms. This treasure waits to be picked up: late spring, the summer and the first part of the autumn can give you plenty of natural, fresh and delicious vitamins and minerals - you just need to go out and pick it up.

One of the most common things to find are berries like blueberries, lingonberries, wild strawberries, raspberries.

This is the list of edible mushrooms in Sweden. Note that some edible mushrooms look very similar to those which are poisonous - you can take a mushroom and taste a bit of it to make sure if it is edible - if there is a burning feeling in the mouth, don't take it. Otherwise, the rule is: if you don't know the mushroom, never take it.

In shady and damp places you can often find ground-elder (Aegopodium podagraria) growing as a weed. The tender leaves can be used as spinach.[1] You can also find horseradish growing wild. Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is a good source of vitamin C and makes a nice spring soup, but don't forget gloves when picking it. Garlic mustard is often found by the roadside, and its leaves can be eaten. Dandelion is also a nutritious and edible plant.

[edit] Links

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