What are the woods of Norway like?

16 comments

1. Barely any. Forrest areas around cities and especially industrial areas have some but the woods are fairly clean. Rarely seen any trash when hiking. People are good at picking up their trash. Exception is some europeans leave behind their trash at their RV spots when they head home.

2. Very little.

   Our most populous city is Oslo. It’s surrounded by woods colloquially known as “Marka”. The North part, “Nordmarka”, is the most heavily visited part of those woods, and again of “Nordmarka”, the trail around the Sognsvann lake/pond is the most visited part.

   As the **most visited trail** of the **most visited woods** of the **most populous city**, you’d expect to see at least *moderate* littering on the Sognsvann lake trail. But in my experience, there’s very little to be found.

   [See for yourself in this timelapse video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg1idXL21bg) and see if you can spot any trash..

   edit: Here’s [another timelapse video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg25ehHGqNY), this one even in 4k.

3. A lot of the woods are pretty inaccessible so putting trash there is to much effort. It is much easier to just dump it in the ocean 😀🐳

4. English here but lived in Norway,
   There’s very little compared to the UK, you get the odd bit but usually Norwegians respect their beautiful nature

5. Little to none to be honest. Most of what I come across are in typical “resting areas” near hiking paths or landscaped terrain and not in the forest itself.

   I don’t think I’ve ever seen trash when going “off-trail”.

6. Not from there. But I think they contain Trees.

7. The other posters are correct that:

   1. There is little litter in Norwegian woods and
   2. What there is, largely comes from tourists;

   but they are not giving you the true reason for this state of affairs, which is the Treaty and Compact of 1903. By its terms, the Norwegian government disavows its protective jurisdiction over litterers, leaving them to work out their own terms with the trolls… which generally won’t favour individual humans who haven’t brought big-game rifles, salt, blessed relics, or (above all) enough suspension of disbelief to realise the trouble they’re in. It was this diplomatic masterstroke that gave the Michelsen government sufficient confidence to break out of the union with Sweden. They knew that the Norwegian armed forces could maintain themselves in the field against the Swedes’ superior numbers, and could hold the (hah) Jotunheim against them indefinitely; but would be forced to give up Oslo and the Gudbrandsdal valley, then as now the economic center of Norway. But with the trolls unleashed on anyone who littered… well, the Swedish armies, being full of Swedes, would obviously leave behind a trail of toilet paper, cans of coffee and beef, packets of snus, cigarette stubs, and empty cartridges from shooting at random trees. And with the Treaty and Compact in place, they would be leaving a trail of bones as well.

8. I can confirm what others say here. I’m a fairly new immigrant (been here a year). I hike quite a bit, and constantly remark on how clean the mountain and forest areas are around Bergen (where I live). You really don’t have much trash at all. This is specific to the wilderness, though. I would say that Norwegian cities are not especially clean. There is a fairly high amount of street side litter in both Bergen and Oslo (and to a lesser extent Kristiansand and Bodø; the two other “cities” I’ve visited).

   For whatever reason, Norwegians seem to have a special respect for the forests that doesn’t necessarily carry over to our own streets.

9. Never seen any litter worth mentioning in the woods.

10. I believe there is a difference between areas people hike a lot like the forrest on the outskirts of cities and forrests in the country side that are accesible by car. I have seen a lot of weird stuff dumped. Old cars is a typical thing, but also vending machines, old refridgereators, car tires, abbandoned shacks, etc.

11. If I’m out in the woods, I usually try to pick up any trash I see and take it out with me. I don’t often find any in Norway. The last things I remember were a beer can and a water bottle (both about a year ago in different woods). I’ve seen a lot of garbage left in parks around here, usually after nice weather and at the beginning/end of the school year, but most people are pretty good about cleaning up after themselves. But that’s not the woods.

    Having walked through several the woods in the UK, Norway, Canada, and Germany, I can say, without a doubt, that the UK has the most trash-filled woods of them. Beautiful, but littered with trash. I’ve seen old typewriters, construction garbage, I found a pile of broken granite headstones (no graveyard nearby and one had a spelling mistake so I assume it was a trash heap). I’ve found shopping cars 2km into the woods and 5km away from the nearest store. All of this is of course in addition to the plethora of pop and alcohol bottles, fast food or store bags, empty packages, garbage dumped. I even found a Rema1000 bag filled with what looked like old shoes in a pile of garbage at the entrance to a forested area by a sign that said “no fly tipping.”

    One thing that was pretty much a guarantee when walking in the woods in the UK was that, at some point, I was going to come across an abandoned car, usually kms into the woods, most probably burned and vandalized so that all that remained was the rusty/burnt frame. I’ve also found what could only be described as an entire office set (computer, chair, desk, etc…) all burned to shit.

12. In Norway there’s essentially a rule where we’re allowed to go out in the woods and do whatever we want, so long as we leave it just about how we found it.

    So no littering, burning, or other long lasting disturbances to the nature.

    Most Norwegians follow this rule.

13. If and when you find some, it’s usually the odd candy-wrapper, maybe something that is biodegradable (paper towels). If you find a larger dump, it’s usually close to a road.

    I don’t hike all that much, but we always bring a trash-bag for _any_ trash we make. That’s how most people do it.

14. If you find any at all its in patches. Like for example near a shopping center you may have a some forest nearby and its more likely to be litter there than anywhere in the country i swear.

    Tingsaker center in lillesand. Little pond/lake in the forest nearby that has turned into a landfill over years. The stuff dumped in that forest and lake is nasty

    Other than that ive only seen trash in areas that are often hiked/camped which at this point might as well just have asphalt roads its so over used and trampled down

15. There is however some plane wrecks in our woods/mountains from the second world war. Most if not all of them are protected, and all are yet to have been discovered. Some people have been illegally scavenging artifacts and parts to sell on the black market. Though not really litter, they should not really be there in the first place.

16. I basically live in the most popular hiking and bathing area in my city, right where the city limits turn into woodland/wilderness (I have to walk 20’ish minutes to get out of the wilderness and into the city limits to catch a bus as an example). And honestly there is so so little. on sundays/mondays there will often be a few empty cans of beer on the picnic benches or the bathing spots. and there are a few natural and man made shelters where you can find either an empty can of beer, or maybe some needles.

    I think most people are very good at picking up after themselves, and even most drunk people or people on drugs still mostly picks up after themselves – or at least attempts to. but there is enough parties, and easy enough access that there will always be a couple beer cans left, until a passer by picks them up and throws them away properly