EU-27: total waste treatment shares by method 2020

In 2020, roughly 60 percent of the total waste generated in the European Union was treated in recovery operations, with recycling accounting for 39.2 percent. Incineration accounted for 0.5 percent, while landfilling and other disposal made up almost 40 percent of total waste treatment in 2020.
Construction accounts for the largest share of total waste generation in the EU, followed by mining and quarrying.

Distribution of total waste treatment in the European Union (EU-27) in 2020, by type of recovery and disposal

Characteristic	Share of total waste treatment
Recycling	39.2%
Backfilling	14.6%
Energy recovery	6.4%
Landfilled	31.3%
Incineration without energy recovery	0.5%
Other disposal	8.1%

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Release date

September 2022

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Region

Survey time period

2020

Special properties

Based on total waste treatment of 2,029 million metric tons

Supplementary notes

On the basis of the Regulation on waste statistics (EC) No. 2150/2002, amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 849/2010, data on the generation and treatment of waste is collected from the Member States. The information on waste generation has a breakdown in sources (19 business activities according to the NACE classification and household activities) and in waste categories (according to the European Waste Classification for statistical purposes). The information on waste treatment is broken down to five treatment types (recovery, incineration with energy recovery, other incineration, disposal on land and land treatment) and in waste categories.

All values are measured in metric tons of waste and in kg per capita, based on the annual average of the population.

Source of waste generation: The generation of waste is attributed to either production or consumption activities. The actor handing over the waste to the waste management system is regarded as the source. For production activities a further breakdown is supplied in 18 economic activities according to the NACE rev. 2 classification. Three of these activities are linked to the waste management and will contain secondary waste: Waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery (division 38), Remediation activities and other waste management services (division 39) and Wholesale of waste and scrap (class 46.77). In addition to the waste generated by businesses waste is generated by households.

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