To achieve the Government's milestones for 2018, which means that 50 % of food waste shall be separated from household waste and undergo biological treatment (composting or anaerobic digestion).   Hultsfred, Högsby and Vimmerby are three adjacent municipalities of Kalmar, county Småland. During 2012 and 2013 analyzes were performed on their household waste to determine its composition. The household waste is currently collected in one fraction. The work, examines how much food waste the household waste contains. From the amount of food waste, the biogas potential is examined - how much food waste biogas generates and how much energy it corresponds to.   Food waste is broken down by microorganisms under anaerobic conditions (anaerobic digestion) in a biogas plant.

 The 1st of July 2006 Sweden made a change of authorities in the system concerning the reception of separated asylum seeking children. Prior to the change, the Swedish Board of Migration was held completely responsible for the reception of these children, who arrives in Sweden without their parents or any other relatives to care for them. Since the alteration of the law (1994:137) the responsibility for the housing of these children now lies within the Swedish municipalities, while the Board of Migration still handles their legal commissions. The change was intended to fundamentally improve the conditions under which these children were taken care of. However the implementation took a severe wrong turn when the municipalities weren't prepared for their new responsibilities and the immediate result was alarming. This qualitative study is based upon interviews with the people responsible for the reception of the separated asylum seeking children in the municipalities of Kronobergs County, as well as one of the two people in charge of the new system at the Swedish Board of Migration.

This study aims to evaluate the waste management in Norrbottens municipalities in key areas such as possibilities to reach the two national waste goals, information to the public, the effect of legislation, future of waste management and differences in geographic- and demographic areas. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) issued by the EU and incorporated into Swedish law plays a major part in waste management by defining a hierarchy in five steps how waste should be treated. Interviews conducted with each of the fourteen municipalities aimed to find out what step in the hierarchy they are at and what effect the implementation of EU-legislature into Swedish law has had. Based on the interviews a diverse range of answers was found in relation to the questions asked, generally the more populated municipalities saw a more positive future of waste management, mainly because more developed infrastructure to handle waste is already in place. However the smaller the municipality is the harder it is to allocate resources for waste management and problems arise in the form of expensive transports of waste.

This study is mostly based on previous research, which includes Sub-national actor?s attitudes and regional action towards the European Union. The purpose of the study is to investigate if four Swedish municipalities in Värmland operate internationally towards the European Union and deepen an understanding of their actions. The main research question is: - How can we increase our understanding of municipal action against the European Union? The research questions of this study are answered through qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were conducted.

The purpose of this paper is to present and analyze the yearly expenses for Swedish rental apartments during the period 1999 to 2007. At the end, it will give the reader a general picture of how the cost-level has fluctuated depending on the production year when the apartment building was finished, and where the same building is located. This paper has the following questions as a starting point:- Can there be an identification of regions depending on where people tend to favor renting an apartment?- How are those regions distributed? That is, where are the cost-levels of the yearly rental expenses highest and where are the levels lowest?Nine statistical surveys from the Swedish government agency Statistics Sweden (Statistiska Centralbyrån) have been used as primary sources for this paper. These surveys deal with price pictures of housing in general, but for this paper the only information that has been used is the one about rental apartments.

The organisation of the municipalities is based on the principle of representation. It has previously been impossible to give the citizens more influence through direct democracy, but the information technology gives new possibilities and the choice of democracy model might no longer be obvious. Representation can be interpreted in many ways and there is a need for a more distinct definition of the rule that the municipalities shall be governed according to the principle of representation. It should also be further investigated how the new technology can be used to increase the use of direct democracy. The municipalities ought to work to supplement the representation with direct democracy in the form of active discourse with the citizens.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine why smaller municipalities[1] in Sweden experience difficulties when implementing the 16 environmental objectives that are designed to solve Sweden's environmental problems.The theoretical framework used for this dissertation is implementation theory which provides three conditions that need to be met in order to have a successful implementation.  These three conditions have shaped the research questions that examine if Torsby municipality has the "understanding," "ability" and "will" needed to implement the decision correctly.  The dissertation employs a case study method to examine why Torsby municipality has experienced difficulties implementating the target: programmes and strategies for planning, which is an interim target to environmental objective number 15: A good built environment.  Qualitative text analysis and interviews with politicians and civil servants from Torsby municipality and the county administration board of Värmland have been conducted in order to answer the research questions.   The material used for this dissertation is mostly from the government bills that are the foundation of the Swedish environmental policy and the documents and reports about the environmental objectives that the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket), the Swedish Environmental protection agency (Naturvårdsverket), and the Environmental objectives council (Miljörådet) have released.The result of this dissertation supports previous research which has shown that smaller municipalities have problems implementating the environmental objectives due to a lack of financial resources. This dissertation also shows that the problems can be due to a lack of understanding the purpose of the objectives.  This leads to a lack of political will to implement the objectives.  Since the municipalities do not have the political will to implement the objectives the appropriate resources needed for a successful implementation are not appointed and therefore the municipalities are not able to fully implement the environmental objectives. [1] Municipalities with less than 20 000 inhabitants..

The objective of this report was to analyse and compare vulnerability and preparation in Swedish municipal drinking water production, in case the commonly used water sources were inoperative. Methods used were a questionnaire and a less extensive study of regulations for water protection areas. The questionnaire was answered by 41 Swedish municipalities. A handful of them were companies co-owned by a few municipalities. Only one out of four municipalities had source protection areas to all their water sources and for many sources the protection was not satisfactory.

The aim of this Bachelor thesis is to analyse how the libraries in the district of Tranemo was affected by the fusion of municipalities between 1952 and 1974, when 13 municipalities was merged into one. My major findings are that one of the libraries became the main library and libraries of the other villages became branch libraries. The main library could increase its quality by employ an educated librarian and move to a place that was more adapted to its purpose. The library loans increased. This course of events seems to be common for what happened to Swedish libraries when there were a lot of fusions of municipalities these years..

This study is an examination of the stadium fever prevailing in Sweden. It is built stadiums in Sweden as never before. The high cost of these constructions end up in the end at the Swedish taxpayers. The study examines through the hedonic pricing of real estate how local residents value the new stadiums. The result indicates that local residents put a positive value in the costly and sumptuous buildings.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to evaluate bookmobile service as a decentralised library service. I have made a qualitative interview survey, with seven Swedish municipalities participating, all providing bookmobile service in their rural parts. The purpose with the interviews is to examine their bookmobile service. I have also studied articles on bookmobile service, and decentralisation through small library units in library journals, to get an insight into how the work with decentralised library service is done in Swedish municipalities. In this thesis answer is sought to the following questions: - Which decentralised library services are suitable for inhabitants and institutions in sparsely populated areas, considering factors such as number of inhabitants, proportion of old people and children, demographic changes, economy, possibilities to cooperate with other municipalities? - What is the current bookmobile service situation in Sweden, taking seven municipalities in the region of Småland as a starting point? My conclusions are that each municipality must decide which decentralised library services that best suites their needs.

In the beginning of the 1990s the responsibility for the schools shifted from the government to the local authorities. This started an era with a freedom of choice for students where they themselves could choose which school to go to. The new system also opened up the possibility for independent private schools to exist side by side with local authority held schools. The overall aim of this study is to determine the factors that affect the location of these independent schools and the geographical pattern these independent schools create. The study in this paper is based on materials from statistics and interviews.

The aim of my study is to answer the question whether there is a potential for services by working horses in the Swedish municipalities. The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Swedish Farmers Union (LRF) has started a cooperation called Climate School (Klimatskolan), with the purpose to increase knowledge in environmental and climate related issues in context of agriculture. This Master thesis is in the framework of the Climate School.Global warming is a problem that gets much attention today. Global warming and climate change are two subjects that are very much in focus on the political agenda. The municipalities of Sweden have a big responsibility concerning environmental work and to develop their own environmental thinking.

To create a more accessible environment for disabled people, the Swedish government, in the year of 2001, made the national act of easily eliminated obstacles valid. This national act states that all easily eliminated obstacles in the municipalities, in places and in premises that are public, shall be removed before the end of 2010, no matter if the owner of the place or premise is private or public. According to Boverket, most of the municipalities are not going to be able to reach that goal, why? The aim of this thesis is to compare the two municipalities Kalmar and Karlskrona in their way of implementing this national act, to see where it went wrong and why. By using implementation theories and qualitative empirical data in the form of interwievs with the total of eight people from different administrations in both of the municipalities, the subject was analyzed and discussed.

The aim with this study was to examine what it is that govern the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth. An extensive development of non-institutional care for children is a visible trend in municipal social service and probable reasons for this development are, among other things, research that show inadequate results of the institution care and economy. Our main questions at issue were how the municipalities argue the priorities that have been done within their youth care services with regard to the non-institutional care and how they reason considering this? Furthermore we asked why the municipalities have chosen to develop their non-institutional care for youth the way they have and on what grounds they make their choices? This study consists of eight qualitative interviews with politicians and employees in four different municipals along with analysis of relevant documents. We have found that what governs the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth has to do with that the municipalities found it vital to find alternative solutions to the expensive and ineffective institutional care, that they comprehend that the quality of non-institutional care are higher then of the institutional care and that the non- institutional care is seen as more effective with regards to economic results and achieved treatment results.