The city of Lund adopts the Quattro select system, which employed also in other Swedish cities. The Quattro Select system is based on householder separation of waste into eight separate fractions, stored in small multi-compartment containers that fit within two separate wheelie bins (Figure 1) collected in two collection rounds using vehicles with four separate compartments (Figure 2). The Quattro System has been in use in some areas of Sweden since 2004 (e.g. Lund), and has met with a high public acceptance, resulting in 90 % of all waste being recycled. The tall wheelie bin format for the separated fractions improves health and safety for both householders and employees of the waste management companies by minimising the need to pick up heavy collection containers.
The bins in the Swedish Quattro system can also be equipped with extra small containers, for example to dispose of light bulbs and small batteries. The multi-compartment bin containing the residual/combustible waste and food waste is normally emptied once every two weeks. Bins that contain only packaging and newspaper can be emptied less often, usually once a month. The collection is conducted with special collection vehicles with four compartments. All four compartments separately compress the waste. Since the vehicles that have four compacting compartments are more complex than traditional collection vehicles, the need for maintenance is increased compared to standard single-waste-fraction collection vehicles
Figure 1. Quattro Select bins
Figure 2: Multi-compartment collection vehicle