Recycling rates of municipal and packaging waste as well as overall waste relate to waste generated in the same year. The recycling rate for municipal waste includes material recycling and composting/anaerobic digestion. The recycling rate for electrical and electronic waste is based on the average quantity of electrical and electronic equipment put on the market in the previous 3 years. The overall recycling rate excludes major mineral wastes. For WEEE is shown recycling rate calculated by multiplying the 'collection rate' with the 'reuse and recycling rate'.
Indicator Assessment
23 Jun 2021
Between 2010 and 2018, total waste generation increased by 5% (114 million tonnes) in the EU-27. When major mineral wastes are excluded from the total, it increased by 7% (50.3 million tonnes). This means that the EU-27 is not on track to meet its policy goal of reducing waste generation. These trends have been driven mainly by economic growth; however, the amount of waste generated increased by a smaller extent than the economy, indicating the relative decoupling of waste generation from economic growth.
This figure shows indexed values of waste production, population and gross domestic product (GDP) with the year 2010 as a reference year (2010=100%). The production phase shows generation of total waste and waste excluding major mineral wastes in absolute terms. GDP was chosen as a basic indicator of economic growth as it expresses the total value of goods and services produced in the country (the components of GDP include personal consumption expenditure plus business investment plus government spending plus (exports minus imports)). Population, expressed as average population, is an important demographic indicator, which provides insights into development in a number of possible consumers and waste producers.
Indicator Assessment
21 Jun 2021
A key goal of EU waste policy is to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill. Overall, the amount of landfill waste has decreased ( in 2018 it was 7.6% less than in 2010), even though the total amount of waste generated has continued to increase. The landfill rate — waste sent to landfill as a proportion of waste generated — decreased from 23% to 20% in the same period. For some waste streams, such as (mixed) household and similar waste, relatively good progress has been made towards diverting waste from landfill. However, the amount of sorting residues sent to landfill has doubled since 2010.
Data Visualization
17 Aug 2020
Data Visualization
17 Aug 2020
Contribution of primary global suppliers of critical raw materials, average from 2010 to 2014
GIS Map Application
18 Nov 2019
This map contains information on countries’ performance and policies around municipal waste management, waste prevention, and resource efficiency and circular economy. Select one of the EEA member or cooperating countries in order to view its country profile for each of these policy areas.
The CORINE Land Cover (CLC) inventory was initiated in 1985 (reference year 1990) to standardize data collection on land in Europe to support environmental policy development. Updates were produced in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. Change layers were produced for 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018.
The data set provides data elements required to populate the Horizon 2020 Mediterranean Initiative indicators.
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