Waste statistics

The Commission presented the fourth report on statistics compiled pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics and their quality. The first report was published in 2008, the second in 2011 and the third in 2014.

Significant progress has been made in compiling waste statistics since reporting started in 2006.

Completeness: the completeness of data delivery by Member States has steadily improved. According to the report, the number of missing values and the number of countries reporting missing values fell considerably between the reference years 2010 and 2012 for the waste generation data set.

In 2010, 8 countries reported missing values but this dropped to 3 in the reference year 2012. The total number of missing values fell from 4.1% in the reference year 2010 to 1.5% in 2012. The tendency is the same for the waste treatment data, though less pronounced.

Data coverage and comparability: the report noted that waste statistics have reached a fairly high degree of comparability across countries for most waste categories and sectors and considerable progress is being made towards achieving full data coverage.

Four areas show the biggest differences in data coverage:

• the different coverage of extractive wastes (waste from mining and quarrying activities) has a very high impact. The biggest differences across countries are due to the coverage of overburden, i.e. natural materials that are removed from mining sites to get access to the ore without being processed, and with regard to extractive wastes that are managed at the mine site;
• the distinction between waste and by-products has a significant impact on the waste amounts in the economic activities: (i) agriculture, forestry and fishing; (ii) manufacturing. This is especially the case for the waste categories wood waste, animal and vegetal waste, and slags from metal production;
• the variance of waste generation in the construction sector indicates differences in data coverage;
• some countries are not yet able to report on the treatment category 'backfilling'. 

Differences between waste generation and waste treatment: the report noted the difference between the amount generated and treated in the EU in 2012 is around 200 million tonnes. This equals approximately 8 % of all generated waste.

This difference has been stable over the last two reporting periods. It was higher in 2006 and 2008, at 400 million tonnes. The pattern stays the same: more wastes are generated than treated. In 2012 the difference was highest for sludges and liquid wastes from waste treatment (approximately 70 %) and lowest (nearly 0 %) for soils.

Achievements and outlooks: the report noted that overall the data are of adequate quality for most countries. The number of countries is growing that have implemented or plan to implement electronic reporting systems, i.e. systems which automatically forward data required under waste legislation from waste treatment facilities to the statistical authorities.

However, to help achieve the EU’s environment, industrial and raw materials policy objectives, further improvement is needed according to the Commission.

The Commission is continuing to work with the Member States on these improvements, for example through seminars and exchanges of best practice.

With the data delivery for 2012, data on waste generation and treatment are now available for 5 reference years, i.e. for the period from 2004 to 2012. With the longer time series, the data is becoming increasingly useful, for example for developing indicators or as input for climate-related analyses.

At the same time, methodological improvements in individual countries may still have a significant impact on the time series, at national level and at the level of the EU-28 aggregate. Developments over time should thus still be interpreted with caution and after careful analysis of the underlying data.