Residual waste per capita

According to the Eurostat statistics on waste treatment, over 2,000 kg per capita of total waste was landfilled or incinerated in EU27 in 2020. This figure has remained stable over the last decade, though a significant drop is observed for 2020 data driven by a reduction in disposal to landfill.

The EU Landfill Directive aims to limit the share of municipal waste landfilled to 10% by 2035 for EU Member States. However, the reduction of municipal waste landfilling requires higher separate collection by citizens, who need to be properly motivated. For other waste types, especially some plastics, current recycling and recovery technology is either expensive or does not exist, leading to a high level of landfilling and incineration for this waste stream. Providing financial incentives to citizens or businesses, e.g. in the form of landfill or incineration taxes or bans, and funding new technologies and innovation are necessary to divert waste from landfill sites and incineration plants and promote more circular waste treatment options. 

Disposal and incineration are the lowest options in the waste hierarchy. A large fraction of waste is still being treated by landfilling or incineration and this can be considered to represent a failure of circularity. Landfilling leads to the loss of valuable material, the generation of GHG emissions, the risk of leakage to the soil and water and other negative impacts, such as odours. Although waste incineration can allow for energy recovery, it largely destroys material functionality and it also carries risks for the environment in the form of air pollution. Declining trends in both landfilling and incineration would therefore be regarded as positive indicators of a transition to a more circular economy.