EU-27: waste treatment shares in member states

Waste treatment methods in the European Union vary widely by member state. In 2020, Italy had the highest recycling rate at 83.1 percent, followed by Belgium. Meanwhile, countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland rely heavily on landfilling to treat waste. Overall, roughly 60 percent of total EU waste was treated in recovery operations in 2020.

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

Characteristic	Recycling	Backfilling	Energy recovery	Landfilling and other	Incineration without energy recovery
Italy	83.1%	0.2%	5.7%	10.6%	0.5%
Belgium	74.1%	11.2%	7.2%	6.3%	1.1%
Slovakia	64.4%	0.6%	5.5%	29.4%	0.1%
Latvia	64.2%	3%	8.1%	24.7%	0%
Spain	60.4%	4.8%	3.8%	30.9%	0.1%
Croatia	57.6%	4.9%	1.8%	35.6%	0%
Denmark	55.6%	16.6%	20.3%	7.4%	0%
France	55.3%	10.3%	6.2%	26.8%	1.5%
Czechia	51.1%	33.8%	3.9%	10.9%	0.3%
Netherlands	49.2%	0%	8.1%	41.8%	0.9%
Portugal	45.4%	8.7%	10.5%	35.1%	0.3%
Slovenia	44.4%	47.1%	2.9%	5%	0.5%
Germany	44%	26.1%	11.8%	17.7%	0.5%
Estonia	43.7%	14.5%	2.2%	39.6%	0%
Luxembourg	41.7%	32.6%	2.8%	23%	0%
Cyprus	39.3%	0.8%	10.4%	49.4%	0%
Lithuania	38.5%	3.1%	7.3%	51%	0.1%
Austria	35.9%	17%	0%	47.1%	0%
Hungary	34%	39.6%	5.3%	20.6%	0.4%
Malta	33.3%	55.8%	0%	10.7%	0.2%
Poland	26.6%	51.5%	3%	18.7%	0.2%
Greece	17.4%	5.8%	1.2%	75.6%	0%
Sweden	11.9%	2.7%	6.2%	79.1%	0%
Ireland	11.5%	51.4%	9.8%	27.2%	0.1%
Finland	9.5%	0.9%	5.5%	83.9%	0.1%
Bulgaria	7.7%	0%	0.6%	91.6%	0.1%
Romania	5.2%	0.9%	1.5%	92.4%	0.1%

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Release date

September 2022

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Survey time period

2020

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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