Waste Treatment in Europe

In the European Union, 474 kilograms of municipal waste was generated per person in 2014 as Eurostat data shows. Municipal waste consists of waste collected by or on behalf of municipal authorities and disposed of through the waste management system. Though it originates from different sources such as commerce, offices, selected municipal services and public institutions (schools, hospitals, government buildings), the bulk of the waste stream is produced by households. The part of non-household waste may vary from country to country influencing waste generation figures. So, the results of comparing countries between each other should not be perceived as the ultimate truth.

Anyway, cross-country comparison reveals that Denmark is the country with the biggest amount of municipal waste generated per capita (758 kg). It is followed by Switzerland (730 kg), Germany (618 kg) and Cyprus (617 kg). However, mentioned countries (except Cyprus) treat all the waste they generate, while in EU-28 as a whole 9 kilograms of waste per capita remain untreated. Herewith, landfilling still remains the major method of treatment in the EU accounting for 28% of total waste treated. This is even in spite of the sustainable growth of the share of recycled and composted waste from 26% in 2000 to 45% in 2014. Meanwhile, the recent revision of the Waste Framework Directive includes the target to increase by 2020 preparing for re-use and the recycling of waste materials from households to a minimum of overall 50% by weight.

Waste treatment practices, however, differ substantially between countries. In 2014, the highest share of municipal waste landfilled among EU members was recorded in Malta (88%), Croatia (83%) and Cyprus (80%). On the contrary, recycling and composting of waste were the most common in Germany (64% of waste treated), Slovenia (61%), Austria (58%), Belgium (55%) and Switzerland (54%). Here, it is worth noting the progress made by Slovenia: for just the four years it doubled the portion of recycled and composted waste. Still, in Slovenia waste treatment remains significantly lower than the waste generation because of temporary storage of municipal waste and the loss of weight during pre-treatment.