© European Union 2013 EP

The 28 member states of the European Union (EU) recycled or composted 42 per cent of municipal waste in 2012, new figures from the EU’s statistical office have revealed.

The Eurostat figures, released yesterday (25 March), show that, on average, the EU treated 480 kilogrammes (kg) of waste per person. Of this municipal waste (arising from households and small businesses and public institutions), the most popular waste treatment method was recycling or composting.

Specifically, Eurostat found that 27 per cent of EU municipal waste was recycled (excluding waste sent for recovery as fuel), with a further 15 per cent composted. This accounts for a rise of 24 per cent since 1995, when just 18 per cent of waste was recycled or composted.

After recycling and composting, landfilling was the most popular waste ‘treatment’ method, with 34 per cent of all waste disposed of through this route, while the majority of the remainder (27 per cent) was sent for energy recovery via incineration.

However, the report details that the treatment methods ‘differ substantially’ across the member states. Germany was the country that recycled or composted the most waste, coming up top with a figure of 65 per cent (47 per cent recycling and 18 per cent composting), and was also one of the countries that generated the most amount of waste per person (above 600 kg).

Following Germany, Austria and Belgium recycled or composted the largest proportion of waste (62 per cent and 57 per cent respectively).

The UK came in the top 10 countries for recycling and composting, achieving 46 per cent; however, when looking at recycling on its own, this number dropped dramatically to 28 per cent.

On a macro level, it appears that the wealthier EU member states performed better in terms of treating waste in the higher rungs of the waste hierarchy, while the less wealthy states, such as Romania and Greece, relied heavily on landfilling (sending 99 per cent and 82 per cent of their waste to tips).

As in previous years, Sweden and Denmark were the two countries that incinerated the most amount of waste in the EU (with the two Scandinavian states sending 35 per cent of municipal waste to their many energy-from-waste sites, more than the 32 per cent sent for recycling), while Austria came up top for composting, sending 34 per cent of waste to composting sites.

Eurostat added, however, that the reported quantities of waste generated and treated do not ‘match exactly’ for some member states, due to:

• unverifiable estimates for the population not covered by collection schemes;
• weight losses due to dehydration;
• ‘double counts’ of waste undergoing two or more treatment steps;
• exports and imports of waste; and
• time lags between waste generation and treatment (such as for waste in temporary storage).

Read the Eurostat municipal waste treatment figures for 2012.