Information on data

• Waste generation: The quantity of waste, whereby ‘waste’ means any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard.
• Waste management: Waste management refers to the collection, transport, recovery (including sorting), and disposal of waste.
• Treatment: Treatment means recovery or disposal operations, including preparation prior to recovery or disposal.
• Recovery: Recovery means any operation whose main result is that waste serves a useful purpose. For example, by replacing other materials that would have been used for a particular function.
• Disposal: Disposal means any operation that is not recovery.

EU members and other countries report data on waste generation and treatment in absolute terms in tonnes of waste generated / treated.

Eurostat calculates and presents waste generation and treatment in kilogrammes per inhabitant.

Data on waste generation are available broken down by:

• source, meaning waste generated by household activities or by businesses and split into economic activities, according to the statistical classification of economic activities (NACE revision 2). Waste producers are categorised into 18 economic activities, plus the category households.
• waste categories, according to substance oriented waste statistical nomenclature (EWC-Stat revision 4), such as chemical wastes, rubber wastes, vegetal wastes, combustion wastes.

Data on waste treatment are available broken down by:

• treatment type, such as
  • recovery (excluding energy recovery and backfilling) 
  • backfilling
  • incineration with energy recovery
  • other incineration
  • disposal on land
  • land treatment
• waste categories, according to EWC-Stat

Shipment means the carriage of waste by road, rail, air, sea or inland waterways of waste across borders, destined for recovery or disposal. Covered are shipments between EU members, into and from the EU, as well as in transit.

Apart from the data in the database, Eurostat also publishes more detailed data on waste shipment across borders, covering the period from 2001.

Those data will include among others breakdowns by countries, Basel Y-codes, hazardousness, list of waste codes, treatment types.

Data include the sales, meaning the products put on the market, and the collected waste of portable batteries and accumulators.

Data are available from 2009 onwards and cover the EU members and some countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Quantities are measured and reported in tonnes.

Data are also collected for the recycling targets for all batteries and accumulators. The data is categorized into 3 battery types:

• lead-acid batteries and accumulators
• nickel-cadmium batteries and accumulators
• other batteries and accumulators.

EU members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway report either the number or the weight of the plastic bags. Based on this, Eurostat calculates the consumption of plastic bags per person per country.

Data are collected based on Commission decision 2005/270 on packaging and packaging waste.

End-of-life vehicles are vehicles that have ended their useful service and are processed as waste, in practice they are dismantled, shredded or otherwise disposed.

The data cover end-of-life passenger cars and light goods vehicles, such as vans and pick-ups.

EU members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway report data on:

• the total vehicle weight
• the number of end-of-life vehicles
• rates for total reuse and recycling and total reuse and recovery.

In the context of this data collection, food means any processed and unprocessed substance or product that is intended or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans. The concept includes edible food (parts of food intended to be ingested) and inedible food (parts of food not intended to be ingested), but excludes food losses (food not harvested or food not authorised to be marketed for safety reasons).

Data is reported by sector of activity according to the statistical classification of economic activities (NACE rev. 2) and by households.

Data on municipal waste generation and treatment are collected annually on a voluntary basis. In addition, Eurostat collects data from EU members and EFTA countries based on the waste framework directive.

Municipal waste means mixed waste and waste separately collected from households or from other sources, if such waste is similar in nature and composition to waste from households. This means that - apart from household waste - similar wastes from commercial shops, trade, offices, public institutions, selected municipal services (such as street and park cleaning) as well as bulky waste are included.

Due to the different proportion of commercial waste in the countries, caution is advised when comparing the data.

Eurostat calculates municipal waste generation and treatment by country expressed in kilograms per capita.

Generation and treatment of packaging waste is reported in tonnes by the EU members and some non-EU members under the packaging and packaging waste directive.

Data include:

• paper and cardboard
• plastic
• glass
• wood
• metal
• other packaging.

These data serve as the basis to calculate the EU revenue for the plastics own resource, which a consists of a national contribution based on the amount of non-recycled plastic packaging waste.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is a complex mixture of partially hazardous materials and components that pose considerable environmental and health risks, if not treated properly.

Data include the amount of

• electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) put on the market
• WEEE collected, treated, recovered, recycled, and prepared for reuse.

The collection rate of WEEE is measured as the weight of WEEE collected relative to the average weight of electronic equipment put on the market in the 3 preceding years.

The price indicators of waste materials and recyclates are calculated in volume (tonnes) and in value (€) since 2004, based on monthly data available from Foreign Trade Statistics (FTS). The revenues from secondary materials (waste materials or recyclates) can pay for a substantial part of the total cost of waste management schemes, this is why price indicators are calculated.

The primary indicator presents the specific prices (€/tonne) over the total traded volume of glass, paper and plastic for all related FTS codes.

As an additional indicator, the total volume (import and export) of the 3 traded waste materials is shown. This indicator (tonnes/month) shows the activity of the market and covers intra- and extra-trade in the EU.

Tables and charts for each material will be made available soon.