Total municipal waste generated in the EU-27 over period 2004-2020 and projections for period 2018-2030

Methodology

The observed municipal waste (from 2004 to 2020) is taken from the Eurostat dataset, while the projections (from 2018 to 2030) consider an European Commission report that predicts municipal waste by 2030 will either increase 3.7 % or decrease 3.6 %, when comparing with 2018 values

Units

Million tonnes

Additional information

The 3.7 % increasing projection is based on per capita waste amount (1996-2018) and Eurostat population projections, and considers the differences in waste generation among the different EU members, while the other (3.6 % decrease) considers a linear trend using total municipal waste data from 2004 to 2018. Neither projection takes into account the latest available data (2019/20).

There is no downloadable dataset for the "Scoping study to assess the feasibility of further EU measures on waste prevention: final report" (European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment, Karigl, B., Neubauer, C., Kral, U., et al., Scoping study to assess the feasibility of further EU measures on waste prevention: final report, 2022, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2779/21588). The European Commission report contains two different projections until 2035, and the current figure is based on the same annual increase for the two projections until 2030 as in the Commission report.