Finland

Finland is generally good for dumpster diving, even though Finnish dumpster divers on FB do not seem overly enthusiastic in sharing dumpstering spots of grocery stores.

It happened to divers to find sometimes in the dumpsters chemical products or broken glass: dive with care!

Food

Let’s Eat Together community! Through this group you can invite friends and strangers to eat or get an invitation to eat from others in the Helsinki area:

• Facebook Group - Let's Eat Together Helsinki

Dumpster Diving World Map

Google Map

If you want to modify the map just email: firnahead at gmail.com

For more exact information on every city and town see template at the bottom of the page.

Transportation

Bicycles

HELSINKI - Where to buy a cheap bicycle:

• Suomen Polkupyörätukku Oy

​* Arabia recycling center​

OR

• on a online second hands website (look bottom)

Recycling

Stuff

There are a few establishments in Finland for getting rid of your surplus stuff:

• Since the early 1990's depression, for many folks flea markets are a favorite way of getting extra cash while getting rid of unwanted possessions.
• In most Finnish cities, used (and preferably clean) but still usable clothes can be dumped into big yellow UFF containers (in Central Europe operated by Humana).
• "Fida International" (see contact details of all Finnish "Fida" stores), a Christian charity organization, both accepts donations from individuals and picks up (for free; appointment has to be set up) anything still valuable you want to discard (furniture, clothes...) .
• Recycling centers ("kierrätyskeskus") accept and collect donations but charge for items you want to take back home
  • Helsinki region
  • Turku
  • Oulu

Helsinki

• Flea market (with also free stuff to take away)

Online second hands websites

• www.huuto.net
• www.tori.fi
• www.netcycler.fi

Bottles and cans

• Most glass, aluminium and plastic beverage bottles bought from supermarkets can be recycled - bring them back to any supermarket and you will get compensated 15 cents for cans, 10 cents for glass bottles, 20 cents for 0.5L plastic bottles and 40 cents for 2L plastic bottles. Collecting bottles during or after large outdoor events can result in reasonable cash.

• Bottles and cans from Lidl have the same deposit as those from other stores, but they can only be returned to Lidl.

• Wine and hard liquor can only be bought from "Alko" stores; bottles of these should be recycled there since there is no compensation for these at supermarkets.

• Foreign-bought items have no deposit money to return. However, you can give them back to any supermarket for recycling.

Hitchiker´s personal experiences

In developed countries I am used to live only from dumpsters but in Finland it didn´t work for me. I hitchhiked from total Norweigian borders to Helsinki and I haven´t found any open supermarket dumpsters in whole country. I spent in Finland only 5 days so i don´t want to edit main article but I strongly recomend you to bring enough food from Norway or some other place because in Finland you will not find a lot.- information from summer 2017

External links

(all in Finnish unless otherwise noted)

• Finnish Wikipedia on dumpstering
• Finnish Wikipedia on freeganism
• Recycling tips
• Google "dyykkaus" for some more dumpster diving tips in Finnish
• Pippi's Dumpsterdiving Club pictures from Åland dumpsters, 40 Min. European dumpsterdiving video, "Earthlings" documentary, all in english
• A Finnish dumpster-diver Marko Vanhanen shares his catch in Youtube.
• Finnish dumpster divers FB group

Media

• TV report on NYC dumpster divers
• Turun Sanomat
• "Robin Hoods of Dumpsters" by Karjalainen

Books

• Siltala-Huovinen, Tarja: Roskisdyykkarin käsikirja (Like Kustannus) ("Dumpster-diver's Handbook") Some reviews