Waste generation and Management

The Waste Statistics Regulation aims: ‘to establish a framework for the production of Community statistics on the generation, recovery and disposal of waste'.

(Regulation on waste statistics (EC) No. 2150/2002, amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 849/2010)

Information on waste treatment is split by treatment type (recovery, incineration with energy recovery, other incineration, disposal on land and land treatment) and by waste categories. All values are measured in tonnes of waste.

Member States are free to decide their data collection methods. The main options are: surveys, administrative sources, statistical estimations or a combination of methods.

The user should be aware that reporting under the Waste Statistics Regulation was revised in 2010 by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 849/2010). The improved reporting structure will be applied for the first time in 2012 (for reference year 2010). The key changes are as follows:

• Some new waste categories have been introduced and there has been a reorganisation of existing categories (e.g. mineral waste from construction, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, waste from waste treatment);
• The waste categories in Annex I (waste generation) and II (waste treatment) have been harmonised;
• A new treatment operation ‘Backfilling' has been introduced, so the former category ‘Recovery (excl. energy recovery)' will be split into ‘Backfilling' and ‘Recovery (excl. energy recovery and backfilling)';