How does waste sorting and pant work in Norway?

Bottles and cans go into the pant machine in any grocery shop: 2 kroner up to half a litre and 3 kroner above it. Everything else follows your municipality — food waste, paper and cardboard, glass and metal packaging, plastic, and since 1 January 2025 textiles as well, which every municipality must now collect separately. Sortere.no tells you what goes where at your address.

Updated 28 September 2026. Every figure and rule has a source and a check date at the end of the article.

Pant: the machine by the shop door

Bottles and cans with a pant mark are worth 2 kroner up to half a litre and 3 kroner above it, and the machine pays in a coupon you use at the till or give to charity. Keep the label intact and do not crush the can, or the machine will not read it. Wine bottles, glass jars and foreign bottles have no deposit here — they go to the glass and metal bin. The whole system, including what the machine will refuse, is in our article on pant in Norway.

What must be sorted, and since when

From 1 January 2025 paper and cardboard, glass and metal packaging and textiles must be kept out of residual waste, and every municipality has to offer a separate textile collection. Food waste and plastic were already covered. The rules apply to households, businesses, municipalities and holiday homes alike, and the reason is plain arithmetic: about 37 per cent of household waste is recycled or prepared for reuse, while the target Norway has signed up to is 65 per cent by 2035.

Where to hand in clothes you no longer wear

Since 2025 textiles have their own route, and there are three of them depending on the state of the clothes.

• Wearable clothes and shoes: a charity shop or a collection box. Fretex, run by the Salvation Army, UFF and the Red Cross all take clothes, and the shops take furniture and books too.
• Clean but worn out, torn or single socks: the municipal textile collection — the point of the 2025 rule is that these are recycled as material rather than burnt.
• Wet, mouldy or oily textiles: residual waste. They spoil a whole bag of otherwise usable clothes.

Pack clothes dry, in a closed bag, shoes tied together in pairs. The addresses of recycling stations and collection points in the catalogue: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger and Tromsø. Some clothes shops also take textiles back over the counter — the clothes shops in Oslo and in Tromsø are in the catalogue as well.

Glass and metal is packaging, not window glass

The glass and metal bin is for jars, bottles without a deposit, tins and foil. Window glass, mirrors, china and ceramics are not glass packaging and go to the recycling station. Lids come off and go in with the metal. Rinsing is enough, washing is not required.

Batteries, bulbs and electronics

Anything with a battery or a plug, plus light bulbs and paint, is hazardous or electronic waste and never belongs in the bin. The shops that sell such goods take them back free of charge, and the recycling station takes everything. A single lithium battery in a bin lorry has started more than one fire.

Cabins, campsites and rented flats

A cabin follows the same rules as a house, and the bins are usually at the road. In a rented flat the bins are in the yard or the bin room, and the caretaker decides how they are marked — ask rather than guess, because a wrongly sorted bag can end up as an extra charge on the building. On a campsite sort into what the site offers and take the pant with you; the machine in the nearest shop pays the same everywhere.

You may also want to read

• Pant in Norway: how the deposit machine works
• Where to park a motorhome overnight, and where to empty waste
• Which supermarket is cheapest: Kiwi, Rema 1000 or Coop
• Cost of living in Norway: rent, electricity, transport and food