Brussels, 27/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - In 2010, nearly 40% of municipal waste in the EU27 went to landfill sites. In some member states, more than half of all waste is incinerated, explains Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, in a press release issued on Tuesday 27 March. In the EU27, 502 kg of municipal waste was generated per person in 2010, while 486 kg of municipal waste was treated per person. The waste was treated in various ways: 38% was land-filled, 22% incinerated, 25% recycled and 15% composted. The statistics show that far more needs to be done to use environmentally-friendly waste processing methods, as laid down under EU law, like recycling, followed by other forms of re-use, only using landfill as a last resort.
Eurostat says the volume of municipal waste generated per person varies enormously from one member state to another. Cyprus, with 760 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2010, followed by Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland with values between 600 and 700 kg per person, and the Netherlands, Malta, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Portugal with values between 500 and 600 kg. Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary and Bulgaria had values between 400 and 500 kg, while values of below 400 kg per person were recorded in Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Latvia.
Treatment methods differ substantially between member states. In 2010, the member states with the highest share of municipal waste land-filled were Bulgaria (100% of waste treated), Romania (99%), Lithuania (94%) and Latvia (91%).
The highest shares of incinerated municipal waste were observed in Denmark (54% of waste treated), Sweden (49%), the Netherlands (39%), Germany (38%), Belgium (37%), Luxembourg (35%) and France (34%). In ten member states incineration was equal to or below 1%.
Recycling was most common in Germany (45% of waste treated), Belgium (40%), Slovenia (39%), Sweden (36%), Ireland (35%) and the Netherlands (33%). The member states with the highest composting rates for municipal waste were Austria (40%), the Netherlands (28%), Belgium (22%), Luxembourg (20%), Denmark (19%) and Spain (18%).
Recycling and composting of municipal waste together accounted for 50% of waste treated or more in Austria (70%), Belgium and Germany (both 62%), the Netherlands (61%) and Sweden (50%).
In five member states less than 10% of waste was recycled or composted (Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia).
EU Directive 2008/93/EC, the Waste Directive, lays down how waste should be managed in the EU, along the lines of the polluter pays, and lays down preferred options for processing. (AN/transl.fl)