The majority of the imported waste comes from neighbouring Norway, reported the Göteborgs-Posten daily.
Sävenäs district heating plant in Gothenburg accounted for 160,000 tonnes of the refuse imported in 2010.
Several of Sweden’s facilities are fuelled with rubbish from overseas and supplies will have to increase as new plants are opened to meet the heating needs of Swedish households.
The Local reported in October 2009 that the bodies of thousands of rabbits culled every year from the parks in Stockholm’s Kungsholmen neighbourhood were being used to fuel a heating plant in central Sweden.
Thousands of animals are culled annually in order to protect the city’s trees and shrubbery and instead of simply disposing of the dead rabbits, they were placed in the deep freeze and transported to Karlskoga and burned in a bioenergy plant.
The move caused consternation among some animal rights groups who argued that the killing of the animals was being turned into “an industry”.
District heating is a common form of energy production for heating the homes of urban Swedes. It is a large-scale method for producing heat which is then transported through a network of pipes to consumers in apartment blocks, business premises or private homes.
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